Vibranium Hawkeye
by PeechTao
Summary: While the others are stuck in a DOD meeting that is spiraling into insanity, Clint and Thor are keeping watch for HYDRA pawns in the abandoned subway tunnels under Manhattan. The worst happens. Trapped and fighting alone, will Clint survive to see his friends again? Or will Loki finally get what he wants? This will change the Avengers forever.FINAL CHAPTER POSTED!
1. Prologue

**Author note:** Read the author notes. We've had this issue before now people, so remember to read the updates J. For those who have not read _Lithium Hawkeye_ and _Titanium Hawkeye_, you may experience moments of delusion and confusion. You should read the other two, not only because you will love them, but because I love them too.

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Was it so hard somedays for others to realize that Clint, for all intents and purposes, was a hawk? Not a mole, rat, vole, or other subterranean critter? Did they constantly _intentionally_ forget that he hated cramped spaces and being underground in any form? Now twice in five weeks he was trapped with Thor no less, in the saddest pit hole SHIELD could come up with. Life was definitely sucking right about now.

His one saving grace was a row of sub conduits that sprouted arbitrarily from one wall, cut diagonally across the ceiling, and rejoined the opposite wall. At fifteen feet up in the largest subway opening between there and fifth street, Clint was somewhat satiated to climb onto the conduit nest and perch. The ceiling wasn't high enough up for him to sit, so he stretched himself out horizontally and tucked in for the long haul. His quiver rested beside him well within easy reach and if he pulled the string to his bow just right he could clear all the pipes and have a perfect shot at three out of four entry points. Thor would have to handle the fourth. No biggie.

They started off talking. Thor was never one to stay quiet long and with Clint acting out the captive audience, Thor had taken full advantage of chatting his ear off. That lasted for about an hour. By now Tony was well into the debate office, absorbing whatever it was that had caused everyone so much heartache to begin with. The meeting would take three hours. Soon, Clint could leave and that would be the end of that.

After hour one, Thor had inexplicably stopped talking. Clint didn't make any move to restart the conversation that would inevitably return to Asgard or Vikings or Victoria's Secret (where maidens go to change their silken skins or so he was led to believe by Tony).

Even though he was enjoying the quiet thoroughly, it was nearing a full half hour since Thor had mentioned so much as the troublesome wear spot in his boot. Always on the alert, Clint rolled a little to look down. Thor was on his feet, shifting his weight from right to left and still looking bored.

"Hey, what's going on down there, big guy?" Clint asked against his better judgment.

Thor continued to stand there, shifting his feet. He didn't offer a response.

"Thor? Yo, blondy-locks you ok down there?" Clint asked a little louder.

"Hmm?" Thor asked after a pause. "Was that something of an enquiry?"

Clint sighed a little. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Just checking on you."

"Who?" Thor asked. "Does someone speak?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "Yeah, ha ha. I speak to your royal highness from the land beyond the ground floor. How fares the lowly existence?"

There was a sudden violent sound, like a boulder crashing against a pane of glass at the speed of an airliner. Instantly on alert, Clint nocked an arrow and was scanning the tunnel on his side. Three paths were clear. He didn't dare call Thor's name to check on the forth. He waited, staying quiet, to see if any foe strayed into his line of sight. Exactly three minutes of nothingness passed. He could hear Thor groaning some, shuffling on the floor against something. When nothing apparent came, Clint dropped to the floor. His leap had him crouched directly over Thor on the first second. His bow was still taught, he scanned the fourth access-way but again found absolutely nothing. Thor was on his back, his body hardly moving now. His eyes were wide, almost bloodshot. His mouth was moving frantically. Words formed in scattered sentences that Clint couldn't follow.

"Thor?! What happened! Tell me what happened to you! Can you understand me?" Clint should have been whispering, but fear was gripping him. Now Thor's face had an unnatural reddish purple hue. If he didn't know better Clint would have thought the man was being strangled before his very eyes.

His mouth continued to move but words barely reached past his lips. Clint leaned in, trying to coax life out of him.

"Rruu." Thor choked.

"WHAT?" Clint shouted. He bent down, his hands lacing around Thor's neck desperately, perhaps a wire, something was sucking the very life from him. "Don't do this." Clint said desperately.

Thor grasped Clint's shirt front with all of his fading strength. He pulled Clint close, whispering into his ear.

"RUN!" he managed, a burst of strength adding substance to his mouthed words. "don't... Loki...please RUN!"

Thor's hand released and he dropped against the stone floor. His face changed pallor again, now shining white and sickly. A thick sheet of sweat burst across his forehead, pouring into his hair as his clothes began to mat against his chest. Clint watched for a few precious moments as the great man struggled to breathe against an invisible foe until at last he seemed to collapse in on himself like a dead man. He lay still, sweating and breathing. Alive.

"Thor?" Clint asked, shaking him. "Thor, wake up. Wake up. Do it now or I swear I will hurt you!" He grabbed Thor's shoulder, now yanking his body around violently. "Don't do this to me! Don't leave me alone like this!"

Swallowing his heart back into his cheat, Hawkeye scanned the four halls again for the sign of intruders. Still, none. No sign that any had even come or gone. Nothing but the overwhelming feeling of being alone, all alone, with the warning of Loki.

"Oh my God." Clint whispered to himself, every fiber in his body threatening to tremble to pieces. They trained for this. Maybe not for Loki but for something. But that didn't make any sense. How did he get here? Out of Asgard and back here? Somehow it didn't matter so much the how but the mere fact that Loki was here at all was enough to step up his terror a whole new level.

Without further delay, Clint tapped into his headset. Stark was instantly patched through, no delay necessary exactly how Clint stipulated it when he agreed to do the mission at all.

Three seconds later, Stark answered him in a hurried quip. "Hurry up bird-brain we've got issues up here."

* * *

ok, so i will be totally honest with my readers: I am now enrolled in veterinary school. What this means is that my story will not have my typical one a day or one per week updates. this is essentially a teaser chapter. i have hashed out this entire story line so far, but being that i have three tests in 2 weeks and finals in three weeks (for 8 classes) then i can only devote so much time to my writing. very sorry! but i know some readers out there will take a chapter from me no matter how it comes!

also: i tend to write faster when i have motivation, so the more you review the quicker i will get the new chapter up!


	2. Chapter 1

**Author note:** Looky what i got done today!

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Chapter 1

He launched out of his bed screaming. His voice so loud it even frightened himself. But he couldn't stop. He screamed and screamed, his arms crossing his chest as if to hold together his shattered body. He felt like nothing, a husk of a human. He felt like he had long before, when Loki's mind was all he knew and his world had crumbled to nothing at his feet.

He wasn't sure how long he sat in his bed, sweating and crying like a newborn left unattended. At some point he felt the weight in his bed shift ever so slightly. After all, he didn't actually have a bed at all, just a stack of box springs uncomfortable enough to be considered home.

Two seconds after the shift in weight came the soft feeling of Natasha's arms snaking around him. They pulled his body close to hers until he was a shapeless mass against her. His body quaked, his voice grew hoarse with his ceaseless cries, and then there was silence. His chest heaved, trying to catch up on its lack of oxygen but having little success. Still Natasha held him. His eyes found the strength to open, only to find the reflection of the hall light shining off the large glass windows across from his bed. It was obvious that Natasha wasn't the only Avenger roused from sleep. The reflection was outlined in Tony, Thor, Bruce, and Steve shaped bodies. He didn't have the chance to feel foolish for letting a dream get the best of him. He had only the thought of keeping his terror at bay.

Natasha stayed with him, her hold never slackening as they waited for the pain to ebb away. She didn't know what had stolen his calm away so randomly this night. Neither did she care. All that she knew was Clint needed her here and now, and she was not going to disappoint him again.

Clint wasn't exactly sure when he had gotten himself back to a calm sleep, but it must have been just before sunrise. Already it was almost nine in the morning. That was as late as he had allowed himself to sleep in three years.

Natasha, if she was ever there to begin with, was gone. The bed was made next to him already as if Elsa had come and gone without bothering to wake him up. A new package, wrapped half in newspaper and half in Christmas wrapping paper, was on his night stand. Clint didn't have to wonder who the giver was, the wrap job had Tony's name written all over them . . . and so did the gift. Clint stopped reading once he got past the words

_**"Pet's best friend, the Thunder Shirt acts like a warm hug to the distressed pet-"**_

Clint sighed. So maybe he wasn't crazy and Nat really was in his bed, and he _did_wake up screaming his brain out in the middle of the night. Lovely.

Clint tossed the package onto the floor, and then thought better of it. He grabbed the neoprene outfit out of the box and headed out of his room to find the rest of the team.

It was typical nowadays to meet up in the living room/kitchen whenever company was being sought out. One or all of the Avengers were likely to be found there, plotting out their day through endless banter and calls between SHIELD and Stark. Today was a little different than the past few weeks of recuperation. For one, Clint finely got the medical clearance he'd been praying for. So the last few days he'd confined himself in the training room, enjoying the ability to at last go all out.

The other issue facing him like a wall of lead was the day itself. D-day. The official day for the rescheduled (for the third time) defense summit. No security expense had been spared. The Avengers were going to be there, come Hell or high water.

Or dead Clint Barton.

Everyone expected Hydra to turn up. Ever since the crazy underground tunnel network SHIELD uncovered, Hydra had shot themselves right back to the top of the government watch list. Clint really didn't care. All he wanted was to get out of the meeting still wearing all the skin he went in with. If that meant being stationed in the New York subway line a full fourty-seven stories from the action, as Thor's babysitter no less, then so be it. Clint just wanted to get through this day and never repeat it ever again. Already he felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Attempt number three might just kill him, though.

The sound of Tony's characteristic snort transcended any of Clint's errant thoughts. Clint had just made his way through the kitchen, pulling out the last dregs of a gallon of orange juice from the fridge. He popped off the cap and chugged straight from the jug. The doggie thunder shirt was firmly wrapped around his chest like a peculiar bra.

"You know, I think it's actually better than the cowl. Should I size you for that, or will you just wear it out of the store?" Tony asked, chuckling to himself at his gift.

Clint bent himself left, and then right to display the haphazard token. "You know, think the size _is_a little off."

"I'll get the tailor right on that." Tony said, still grinning.

So far the others hadn't made their way into the gathering room yet. Tony was sitting on one of the kitchen's high-backed bar stools, reading over some nearly transparent digital displays in his hand. Tony's version of the morning paper, Clint often mused.

Barton took up a seat across from Tony with the orange juice jug in his hand. A stack of apples sat untouched in a basket between them. After a careful selection process, Clint deemed one worthy of being considered still edible. He sat it in front of himself, but made no move to actually eat it.

Once in a while Tony looked up from his display to spy on his friend. Curiosity always was a problem area for him. "So, you gonna eat that or just stare at it."

Clint smiled. "Actually, the last two times I have been in the position to back you up for this idiotic event I always end up throwing up my lunch. And everything else for that matter. Just not sure how much I am going to like tasting orange juice and apple again."

Tony made a twisted face. "Stay away from milk." Was all he offered as advice.

Clint nodded. "Yeah, cereal is not my first choice, I promise"

Tony crinkled his nose in mild disgust before shaking it off and changing the subject entirely. His voice dropped an octave and he moved a little closer. "That was different for you. Need to talk?"

Clint looked curiously at him for a moment. Perhaps it was still the last few dredges of the non-sleep he had the night before, but it took too long to understand him. "Oh." Clint said at last. He shook his head a little. "Yeah, not sure what happened there. Hope I didn't freak anyone out."

Stark would normally have cracked a grin or made a snide joke. It was a testament to his concern that Tony did neither. He wasn't looking at Clint, but rather at his clear clipboard. His fingers had stopped scrolling through the information, his eyes didn't even seem to take in the words.

"No, was fine. Hardly noticed a thing." Tony blatantly lied.

"Uh huh." Clint replied. "Look, just do me a favor and get this over with. I am sick and tired of repeating this stupid day over and over again. Either ignore it completely once and for all or just get it over with, all right?"

Now Tony looked up. "So ignoring it is an option?"

Clint was already walking away, heading to his room to grab his recently returned gear. The reply came over his shoulder, "Talk to Fury about that one. Maybe he'll let you off easy."

Tony scoffed a little, turning back to his readout as he began to scan the material again. It was a fat chance that the one-eyed power trip would let him get off with anything of the sort. But then again, Stark had just as much of a reason to be apprehensive as everyone else. Only a week ago did his cast finely come off his broken arm, received when Clint and he were shot out of the sky on their way to the defense summit the first time. The second time the summit was arranged; Tony, Steve, and Thor were kidnapped the night before and tortured until Clint and Bruce bailed them out. That made it two to nothing with the bad guys on top. Tony wasn't worried per se, after all the team was now as ready as they could ever be, but he was not in a hurry to visit the psyche ward of New York General one more time.

At least Clint would be well away from the action, teamed with Thor, and stuffed in the vacated subway tunnel below the Ministry of Defense building in downtown Brooklyn. Sure the tunnels turned out to be a link to HYDRA's underground network in the city, but no one thought HYDRA would be striking there again. Clint deserved the break for once. Everything was set to run smoothly. But then again, nothing ever really did.

* * *

ok, so there you go! review away if you please, it brightens my day!

this story will have a VERY different flow then my other books, so try to keep up!


	3. Chapter 2

**author note: ** ok, this is one of my jumpy chapters, so hang on tight and read it right:) it is a continuation of the prologue, we are back on Clint now.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Chapter 2

_When he saw it the first time, he figured it was just an after effect of the attack in the subway tunnel and brushed it off. The second time he chalked up to a fluke. The third was the last straw and Clint couldn't call himself Hawkeye if he just continued to look blindly on at what was an obvious issue with one of their own. But rather than concern the whole group, he waited and pulled Thor aside in private one day as the rec room cleared out. _

_The Asgardian had just finished what appeared to be eighty-nine thousand reps with a dumbbell larger than Clint's body. But appearances were hardly making the grade. Something was off, and Clint knew it. Now as he watched the weight slip for the third time from the Asgardian's hands and slam into the mats with a mighty thud, he couldn't keep quiet a minute longer._

_Clint strolled up to him, waiting until the door slid shut behind Steve to start talking. _

_"Hey, you feeling all right?" he asked in passing, trying to seem aloof._

_Thor sat on the weight bench, looking at his hands as if confused. The fingers folded over, flexed, and then extended out over and over. "I do feel as if some entity has apprised me of my strength. Though my friend has not found it worthy to abandon me." He cast his eyes to the floor where Mjolnir rested against the bench seat._

_"First time I ever saw you drop something without planning it." Clint continued. He draped a towel over his shoulders. Since being cleared he'd been hitting the gym double time to work off all the crap he'd been stuffing in his face. He half blamed Stark for it. The guy sure knew how to keep an unhealthily stocked fridge. _

_"I have no certainty in myself." Thor stated. His eyes had turned to Clint now. Regardless that Thor was sitting and Clint was not, they were still almost at eye level. It made the archer realize every time how truly huge the guy was._

_"What do you mean? You got arms like an ox, I wouldn't think of making a go at you. And even though Hulk does take a few potshots now and again, I know you've got him beat."_

_If his speech was meant to be inspiring, which it was, the effect was lost on Thor. _

_"I have never acquired a taste for, how do humans describe humanity?"_

_Clint shrugged. "That's descriptive enough for me."_

_"I feel as though this world has grasped my warrior's will and shredded it like the crush of a Bylojinrery."_

_To that Clint's eyebrow raised. "Ok, got me there."_

_"You do not have—"_

_"I sincerely doubt it."_

_Thor cast his eyes down. The last time Clint had seen him this depressed looking, Natasha told him that a cartoon version of himself was actually make-believe and not an alternate reality brother from a separate dimension. After that blow Thor could have been a pin-pricked balloon, for all the air he held in him simply rushed out until there was nothing left but the same look Clint was staring at now._

_"You think you've been away from home too long?" He asked, not knowing what else to say. He wasn't Banner and frankly Clint knew nothing about the health factors of keeping extraterrestrials alive after spending most of his time trying to do the exact opposite._

_Now Thor shrugged. It was an awkward motion on him. On Asgard they did not "shrug". So Tony had taken it upon himself to teach the motion to his friend and brother in arms. Thor, as he was so dutifully instructed, gave Clint the middle finger. Clint ignored it. It was too hard to retrain Thor to get into that kind of conversation. _

_"I do not know, my friend. But my bones shake as never once before. Perhaps I am being guided towards an evil approach."_

_"Or you're getting a cold." Clint said flatly. He patted the guy on the shoulder and headed for the door. "Don't work too hard, ok? Big day between you and me tomorrow and I need all your help to keep my butt out of the flames again."_

_"Mjolnir and I look forward to another bout!" Thor called after him._

Clint shook off the brief memory as his eyes fell on Thor. He'd at least gotten through to Tony on his comm, even if the guy seemed less than pleased to be disturbed at the moment. "Thanks dear, love you too." Clint replied through the link. "I think I might have just a few more issues then you at the moment."

_"Shoot."_ Stark said.

"Thor's down for the count. I don't know what happened, if it's the same thing as before or something new. He said a lot of things I didn't understand. He told me Loki's here, or he's come back, I don't really know. I want someone else down here. Can you send some SHIELD Ops to my location?"

_"They're already on their way."_ Tony said. _"Gotta go, darling. Dad's being mean again."_

"You better send me some back up!" Clint growled, silencing the comm and looking around again.

Clint scanned all areas of the tunnel again. So far there was no sign of anything but that didn't make him relax any more than before. In fact, it was probably making his nerves much worse. He checked Thor again, but the man still was not moving.

"Barton, you should get out of here." He whispered to himself, always scanning around him. There was no use staying out in the open while anyone could come up behind him on four sides. It would be better for them both if he found a one-way tunnel, something to press his back against, maybe even beside an access ladder. Or he could just drag Thor back the way they came and get out of the place and let the grunt SHIELD ops fumigate the place for good measure.

His mind decided in an instant, Barton leaned down and gathered Thor's cape in both his hands and began to drag. At first, he was overwhelmed by the weight. Thor wasn't exactly a small guy. But after resetting his hands, swinging his bow onto his back, he was more than prepared to get the job done.

Clint started off down the tunnel, Thor's body following submissively behind as if it had a choice. No part of him felt guilty for dragging his friend across the filthy floor, he knew the guy could handle it. Clint glanced back over his shoulder. He forgot about Mjolnir. If Thor came to, he'd rather have his hammer close by then wait for it to follow along like a lost puppy.

Clint dropped the cape and eased Thor back into a laying position. His first instinct was to simply go and pick the hammer up, which he tried unsuccessfully. He tugged it three or four times with no improvement when realization flickered into his brain. No one could pick up Thor's hammer except for Thor.

"Fine. Be that way." Clint grumbled. He lifted the simple leather strap on the end of Mjolnir and looped it to the toe of Thor's boot. When he began to drag the Asgardian again, the hammer came right along without complaint.

Clint flicked a corner of his mouth up with the advent of his own intelligence. It felt good to do something smart. At least the closest access point to the surface was not far away. He had stipulated that also when he agreed to this trip into the rabbit hole to begin with.

He felt like a newbie operative going up to Nick Fury and requesting his special services for the meeting. The director gave him the same look he gives to cockroaches before he splatters their bodies under his boots.

"Agent Barton, do you mean to tell me you are unfit for this command post? Because if that is what you are trying to point out, then I have a shiny new console sitting right next to Asteroid-boy over there currently devoid of a washed-out-agent. Care to offer your services in that area instead?"

Clint expected the reaction but it didn't make his requests any less important, both physically and mentally. His only saving grace was the Captain who jumped right to his defense.

"Sir, I don't find Agent Barton's requests outside of the scope of his patrol. In fact, I find them to be an improvement on our current plan."

Now Fury's eye lasered in on Rogers. "And how does that factor in, **Captain** Rogers?"

"Having a direct open link to Mr. Stark will improve our communication between our split groups. If an issue arises on either front, back up can be obtained instantly. And we already dealt with a situation where the team was trapped in a dangerous situation in these tunnels. Keeping their position by an easy exit will possibly keep the Hulk from tearing up half of Manhattan to find them again."

Now Banner was in the discussion too. "I agree with that. For some reason he's taken an affinity for Agent Barton since the last tunnel attack. If he breaks out, doubt I could keep him in a conference room."

Natasha went to jump in as Tony geared his own witty retort, but all of them were cut off at the ankles.

Fury picked up his metal clipboard and dropped it with a massive clang off the table top. Everyone jumped at the harsh sound, but he accomplished his task in getting their attention trained back on him. "Since when did this become a group discussion?" He growled. "I don't think I asked for opinions. And if anyone thought I did ask they can go down to the infirmary now and get their ears examined. **Stark, put your hand down!"**

Stark let his hand sink back to his lap. "Well, Nick, you did ask Steve how it all factored in."

Clint snorted. Yeah, that meeting didn't last much longer. Director Fury pretty much chased them out of the command deck. If anyone stood there a minute longer they would have a reason to see the infirmary, or at least that was his opinion. Generally his opinion was law.

Clint stopped in the center of the tunnel. He eased the cape off his shoulder and back to the ground again. Thor was still unresponsive, breathing, eyes holding nothing that meant he was aware of the world. If Clint didn't know any better, he would say Thor was just sleeping off a night of boozing. Of course none of that made any sense. For one, he'd never seen Thor be able to get drunk. He probably could, but the world may run out of hard liquor before that. Sleeping didn't happen either so far as he knew. Sometimes the man just zoned out, staring into the distance like he was seeing a world no one else could see. Clint pushed back all of his concerns for now. Leave figuring out alien metabolism to Banner, right now his priority was escape.

Over their heads was the escape hatch he had been promised. It was a ten foot climb out of a manhole only thirty feet from the entrance of the Department of Defense building.

"Hang on a sec, Thor, and we'll be outta this crap-hole sooner than you can say Asgard." He said. Leaving Thor on the ground, he climbed the vertical ladder to the manhole cover. He'd already practiced this a few times, to assure himself that he could lift the manhole unassisted. Above him ten SHIELD agents were waiting, just in case signs of trouble emerged.

Clint leaned his head down and sideways, shouldering the manhole cover up. It was a little heavier then he remembered, so he pressed up harder. He climbed down a rung and inspected the manhole cover. Nothing seemed out of place or showed obvious signs of foul play. He made a sudden thrust up with his shoulder, but succeeded in doing little but bruising himself.

They were sealed in.

* * *

oh, i hope everyone is enjoying reading while i study the intricacies of the pelvic limb and canine reproduction. for my own sanity, please review. i have been stuck in my room for three days now. i think I'm seeing spots... oh wait, it may just be a dalmatian.

dear God, please review


	4. Chapter 3

**Author note:** yeah, not much to say about this one but, you're gonna hate me. prepare for a roller coaster.

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Chapter 3

Herding Tony Stark was like directing an untrained bull through a field of flapping red sheets. Every shiny article that caught his eye was instantly meant for proper inspection and off Tony went to check it out. Pepper had to give him less grief however, for more often than not he wandered back without being asked, a vast improvement to the normal Tony. Pepper knew he promised Clint that everyone was going to be on point today, including him, and it seemed like he was fighting the more curious part of his personality to do just that. Regardless, he had insisted on Pepper coming along. If only to further keep himself tethered to reality and not off in his own tangent with Banner and Rogers in tow.

Natasha brought up the rear, five SHIELD unnamed Ops with her. Director Fury was sparing no man power to make sure that this meeting went smoothly. If the Department of Defense was willing to reschedule the summit not once, but three times he was determined to get Tony Stark in that room come what may. Developments had adjusted their lives along the way. The first of which being a weaponised and fully thriving faction of HYDRA reawakening to take some not-so-gentle potshots at the Avengers team. If that didn't raise some red flags over at the DOD very little could.

When the oak doors opened, the team expected to see a massive table ringed in world leaders from every major power on the planet. Of course some small indiscreet country would show up as well, allowing plenty of fodder for Stark's mouth to stay interested in the meeting. Inevitably he would fool around on his phone or iPad for the better part of the next three hours and that would be the end of it. At least he came prepared for that.

What he was not prepared for was the empty room. A single chair in the center of the table was occupied. It was like walking into the principal's office at a high school after you've just been caught duct taping frogs to the mirrors in the girl's bathroom. Of course Tony would know nothing about that.

Well, almost nothing.

Five empty chairs were made available to the four Avengers, a last reserved for Pepper. Tony and Pepper took the far left while Bruce sat beside Pepper and Steve took the end. Natasha preferred to stand, though she didn't voice her opinion. She just took up a place between the door and the wall of windows at the principal's back. If anything came flying through either direction, it was not going to get far. The SHIELD suits stayed outside the door.

"Mr. Stark." The officiator said. "A pleasure to have your company at last. I trust you've healed up since your latest encounters?"

"Let's cut the crap and get this over with." Stark snapped back. "I never did want to come to this thing to begin with, and you know it. I have no interest in you or anything to do with you and honestly, army green on those breasts is just a sin."

Pepper grabbed a pincer full of his thigh flesh and twisted it under the table. She was discreet in her punishment. Tony was not in his acceptance of it.

"OW!" he cried, turning on her with a look of a chastised boy. "You know it's true. I never see you in that!"

Rogers rubbed his brow. This was going to be a long meeting.

"General." He said, attempting to salvage the introduction. "As familiar as Mr. Stark may be with you, I confess I don't even know your name. I was under the impression that a Mr. Tether was officiating this summit."

The general was a 3-star bird, a femme fetale with a jaw that could slice fruit on its sharp angles. Her eyes may have been brown at one point but the consuming of children's souls have pitched it bitter black. If she was a read-head, Tony would just call her Natasha.

"My name is General Armanick." The woman said, extended her hand to Rogers. With her arm length it only spanned a quarter of the width of the desk. Rogers was therefore inclined to stand to meet it. He took the gesture for what it was, a superior putting someone inferior to them in their place.

The handshake continued down the line, everyone being required to get up, awkwardly stretch out, shake, then returned to their seats except for Tony Stark, who stared at the offered limb with enough contempt to fill a court room.

"I don't touch." He said by way of explanation, which was more than most people received from him.

As if it was expected, which it probably was, the General ignored him and continued her explanation of the events to follow. "Given the high profile attention this summit has received from outside parties, it has been decided that this conference will be telecommunicated. Those who need to be present are engaging our controlled satellites as we speak and will soon appear here," she gestured to the wall opposite of Natasha's post. It was like looking at a digital-television display at Best Buy. "Once you have been brought up to speed, the meeting will start."

Rogers nodded. "All right, what do we need to know?"

General Armanick reached into her briefcase and pulled out a stack of files. This she slid over to the center of the table. "These are the records we have on the woman SHIELD has described as the new head of the faction HYDRA. Her name is Anka Kugler, a neo-nazi zealot who has been on our radar since 2001. Those who have joined her underground movement of creating another Nazi Germany have naturally followed her into the work of HYDRA as well. We've been tracking her movements this passed month but lost them as of three days ago. We also have reason to believe she may have been involved in the attack on Manhattan as well."

Rogers thumbed through the papers. They were standard personnel files, like so many he'd scrolled over in the past. The picture was definitely concurrent with what little he remembered of the woman that tortured him. But something very distinct did not make sense to him. Banner was first to bring that point up.

"Why was SHIELD not made aware of this?" the doctor asked. "We were under the impression that HYDRA had fallen off the radar completely. That no one was tracking them."

Steve, finished with the stack passed it along to Banner who began reading over the same information.

"To be frank," General Armanik said, "SHIELD is not the overwhelming super power of the planet. And the day they are is the day democracy falls and this country with it."

"Oh, cut the patriotic crap!" Stark exclaimed. "Just tell them the truth, the DOD was jealous, wanted all the credit for taking out HYDRA for themselves, and didn't want to let a little thing like information sharing get in the way, am I right?"

The general did not answer.

This time Steve waited, letting the uncomfortable silence drag out until it was obvious neither party was going to give in and be the first to crack. If the DOD was withholding this kind of information, what else was slipping through the cracks? What was the Department of Defense even doing moving on its own without consent from the President? The Avengers would know whether they had it or not with their contacts in the White House and it was increasingly clear the DOD was not filling in all branches of the government on recent work.

The void was filled by the sounds of the wall of televisions firing up. World leaders from every major power appeared, swathed in an isolated room with nothing but a translator and themselves. The summit had started, and Tony's question would go unanswered.

"I don't like this." Banner whispered to Steve. "Something's off."

"Well we're here." Steve replied quietly. "Which is an improvement at least."

"Think Tony's actually interested?"

The two look down the table at Stark who had flipped open his iPad and started flicking through files, music, or maybe just porn. Neither had to say what they really thought the answer was. Tony couldn't be bothered if he'd been paid to be.

_Metal, who cares about metal._ Tony wondered in his head as the summit prattled on. He only heard five words in eighty, all summing up to the DOD's recent mining endeavors uncovering a new metal that would likely be beneficial to mankind. Both light and durable, strong, but thin, it was stronger even then the hotly contested adamantium whose limited stores were being used up like hot dog rolls at a ball game.

In his own little world, Tony continued flicking through portal after portal of the defense department's firewalls. Already an hour into the meeting and he'd played three hundred and fifty-six rounds of the same level in angry birds without attaining his sought for three-star score. Bored with that, and not wanting to break his iPad in half through frustration, he moved on to more productive feats. Like cracking into a top-secret network. That always made him giddy. He knew full well that across the table the General was part officiating the meeting, part sticking daggers through his torso. Mentally of course. But if no one was even allowed to know the _name_ of this new metal, why did he care?

The representative for Russia, a rather frail looking man who may have been Yoda's twin, brought up that exact point. The DOD had mentioned all of the benefits, the easy with which the mining process was under way, and the prime location of the material, but said relatively nothing as to the chemical makeup or the name of the metal itself. If they were discussing mercury for instance, some people may want to know they were just wasting their time. The General diverted the question, citing that to reveal any more exact details at this time may be detrimental to the secrecy of the mining effort.

So Stark, not one to have his time wasted any more then the next billionaire genius began finding out exactly what Armanick was so adamant about not giving up.

_SHIELD was harder to hack then this,_ Tony mused. _And I have unrestricted access to them. _

His fingers flew along the digital keys until he found out precisely what he was looking for. All the while his mind filling with the mental escapes of DOD suits actually going and mining anything subterranean that was not a submarine sandwich. And when things like that didn't add up in his mind, there was usually a reason. Boy did he ever find one.

Everyone else knew he had as well. The iPad dropped from his hand and smacked off the table, almost hitting the floor had his lap not been in the way. He sat in a frozen state for perhaps four seconds, enough for Pepper to lean over and ask if he was all right before Tony suddenly shot to his feet.

"Sorry!" he announced too loudly. "Me, clumsy. Happens. All's well." He grabbed Pepper's elbow and angled her into his own chair. Then he snatched Banner up, and plopped the doctor in Pepper's chair. Now rearranged, Tony was sitting between both Rogers and Banner.

"Please," he announced to General Armanick. "Continued with the slide show, it's absolutely riveting."

After an uncomfortable pause, she did just that. It was better to not draw attention to any of Stark's sideshows.

Once the talking, questioning, and eventual arguing between the ambassador of England and the one from Canada began, Tony felt it safe to share his finding. He slid his iPad first to Banner, a natural response between the two scientists. When Banner moved to snatch the device off the table to be sure he was reading correctly, the tablet was slid toward Rogers.

Steve read, tensed, and looked at Tony. "Tell me where." He whispered.

Stark nodded. The word echoed around in his head like pangs from a gong. **Vibranium.**

**:(;):  
**

"HELP! WHAT-THE-_**HELL**_! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" Clint roared, slamming his fist against the immovable manhole cover. Actually, it was the fifth immovable manhole cover. After suffering the inability to remover the first, he figured the boys upstairs had simply fallen asleep at the switch and let a truck roll over the top of his closest escape. While infuriating, it was not a big deal. There were plenty in this end of the tunnel to choose from instead. What he did not intend was having to drag Thor to each one, and each one being equally sealed off. He'd even fired one of his concussive arrows at one far enough away that the back flow of the blast wouldn't kill him. It was still a horrid idea that left him deaf for seven minutes. It didn't work either which made no physical sense.

He slid down the last ladder, grabbing a scrap of rubble off the ground and chucking it down the hall. He screamed and cursed and threw whatever he could find in his fit of discontent. At least no one was there to see it and Thor wouldn't be playing witness for a while.

Thor.

Clint leaned down to check for any progress but was met with nothing. He had already decided this was nothing like the time Thor was strapped to an electromagnetic plate. SHIELD's techs figured the high signals scrambled something in his alien brain, immobilizing him through the connection he had with his hammer. Clint, and everyone else for that matter, was sure the techs had also taken a few extra notes on that one, just in case SHIELD was ever required to do the same thing. Somewhere on the Helicarrier Thor had his own little death chamber waiting like Hulk's spare bedroom.

A sound had Clint instantly on alert.

He poised over Thor's body, his bow pulled taught in his hand. Sharp blue eyes scanned the immediate area, willing light to pour through the shadowy tunnel around him. His ears listened hard for the slightest movement, feeling somehow they were already surrounded. The trouble with arrows was their limited number. Clint Barton always argued bullets had the same issue, but at least bullets were easier to stick in his pockets for extra backup.

He wanted to change his arrow tips to the ones that make a bigger bang, but given how well that just went decided against it. Below him, Thor remained the motionless mass he had been reduced to for the past hour. It was obvious that was not going to change in time to make any sort of difference for Clint. And where the Hell was backup? Even if Tony forgot to call them right away, he should have at least seen another patrol by now.

The blackness of the distant tunnel faded from his form, like a cloak tossed back from his shoulders, the Asgardian brother of Thor came toward him. Loki in all his glory stood before him.

Clint's fingers flinched, so much so they released the arrow on the bowstring he held so taught. It sailed true, directly through the floating image of the demon striding toward him.

"Hawkeye." Came the voice, echoing in the hollows of his mind. It had plenty of space to rattle around in. His brain was completely empty. Thor was forgotten.

Loki flew forward, his slender fingers threaded around his neck as he slammed Clint against the closest wall. Clint's very soul sunk within himself. He was helpless, hopeless, trapped again in this nightmare. Loki's very presence crushed against him.

"How much I have missed you." Loki seethed in his ear. His spear raised and Clint felt the hot, searing, pain slice him in half. He screamed.

The world slid sideways, the sight of the tunnel shifted, then bounced back like the bobbing of a boat on rough waters. As if it was all some delusions mirage, Clint found himself still poised over Thor's body. There was nothing directly in front of him but brick and the arrow he'd lodged in it. The tunnel split to the left and right from there.

He panted, his hand probing his middle, expecting blood but finding nothing but his untouched shirt. He whipped his head in both directions, willing the vision to return but meeting nothing. He was alone.

His hand reached up, patching his comm to Stark.

"_Tony's delivery service."_ Stark's voice popped through the din.

"Stark?" Clint asked, his voice still ragged in disbelief of what he did or did not just witness.

"_God, Clint, you sound like you just saw a ghost or something! Are you all right?"_

Clint wiped his hands on his pant legs, trying to dry the sweat off them. He looked around once more, as if to assure himself Loki was not just hiding in another dark corner.

"Hey, Tony, where's that back up you promised." Clint said, trying to form words on lips made of lead.

"_They aren't there yet? Why didn't you just bail out? The exits like five feet away—"_

"Don't you think I tried that, I'm not an idiot!" Clint snapped. His voice had lowered, as if trying to keep someone, he didn't know who, from hearing. "Every manhole cover, every single one, is sealed. I can't get out."

"_What do you mean sealed?"_

"What do you think I mean!" Clint whisper-shouted. He felt like paranoia was seizing him, making him edgy for no reason. He didn't know what the Hell that moment with Loki was all about. Maybe he was losing his mind.

"_Where's the closest patrol, can you get to them?"_

Clint looked around again. "I'm already in the next grid and I haven't seen a soul. It's like the place has been emptied. Patch me over to Roddick's comm, I can find out where—"

"_Can't do that."_ Stark cut him off.

A sound echoed off the walls again. Clint straightened this time, an arrow already knocked and ready to fly. He held his breath, and then training kicked in and made him breathe again.

Another echo. In front of him.

"_Clint did you hear me?"_

"Yeah, why?" Clint said. "I'm supposed to have clear access."

"_DOD meeting, they scrambled all the outside communication. I can't patch anything anywhere."_

A louder bang. There was something like a gunshot. Clint's heart quickened in his chest. He moved over Thor, forward. Heading toward it. "That doesn't make any sense, how are we talking if you can't patch out? Stark, I thought we worked on this. Are you telling me that the greatest two hackers sitting next to each other cant scramble past a little DOD signal, stop feeding me that cheap bull—"

"_Hate to break it, but those are the facts. I'll send one of the guys to get in touch with Roddick's men now. Sit tight. Where are you?"_

"Section three." Clint whispered. He pressed himself against the left side of the tunnel wall. His head sneaked a glance down the hall. An unfamiliar scream split the air. More gunshots. More screams.

"_Was that a gun?"_ Tony cried.

"Get me back up!" Clint relayed. He cut the link, rushing down the far tunnel after the sounds of death. He could see flashes of gun muzzles, hear bodies hitting the tunnel end echo their final sounds. By the time he reached the scene it was too late.

There was nothing to see. Absolutely nothing. Bullet holes scorched the walls, but there were no shells on the ground. He'd heard the bodies, the screams, but there was no one hurt. No one even present. He'd walked into another empty tunnel with its flickering lighting playing up the ghostly shadows on the walls.

Clint stood in the midst of old subway rails and little else, wondering if he was going completely mad, even as he missed the sight of blood seeping into the souls of his boots.

* * *

ok, nows the time to review and tell me how much you hate cliffhangers.


	5. Chapter 4

**Author note:** none today:)

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Chapter 4

If the word Vibranium in an encrypted letter to general Armanick's email didn't raise a few eyebrows, then everything else Tony was finding did. He could only do so much alone and as Banner was itchy to do something helpful, Tony relinquished his iPad to him. Instead the billionaire pulled out his phone and started tapping away on that instead. Banner's fingers always did have a way of screwing up the screen if he played with it too long, so Tony was perfectly satisfied to use it himself. It didn't change his ability to search, if anything he was more resolute then before.

Banner knew little of Vibranium besides it being the main component of Captain America's shield. He looked over the chemical formula, familiarized himself with most of the basic chemical properties of which he knew most already. It absorbed energy. Whether it was a chemical blast or a blow from Thor's hammer, nothing Banner knew could get through that shield to harm their Captain. Then he found something unexpected in his simple descriptive e-mail.

"_The incidents are still occurring. Four dead."_

Banner touched Tony's elbow.

Ironman leaned over to read the screen. He and Banner exchanged knowing looks. "Dig deeper. I've almost got the location."

Banner agreed, and began typing with a renewed interest. His mind tuned in and out of the meeting. The basic introduction of the discovery of this unnamed metal. Now the General was showing practical applications of it in simple test phases. What Banner saw was making him more and more uneasy. Armor that was impenetrable. Weapons that couldn't be destroyed. All those things that the DOD would love to show off but scientists would fear. Once this technology went public, anyone could get their hands on it.

No wonder they wanted Stark here. He was the only sane mind that may convince the DOD out of this. He had firsthand experience on what happens when a "defense" company goes dark and starts selling to both sides. If the Avengers had to face a Vibranium-clad army, then the _Chitauri_ attack would be as sedate as having to wrestle a canary into submission.

In her corner, Natasha was still in looking but not-looking spy mode. She saw everything going on in that room but appeared as disinterested as she wanted to be. Watching Tony and Banner's hard looks was progressively getting her more and more concerned. That and whatever the General was prattling on about seemed like an ego maniac displaying her collection of shrunken heads.

Radio chatter was at a minimum. The patrols were circling as they should. All was quite so far, but that meant she still wanted to make sure. As the minister from Russia began to detail his own possible uses for this new element, Natasha took the opportunity to turn away from the conference. She tapped her comm, bringing up her link to Clint.

"How's it going down there?" she asked quietly.

"_Did Thor ever tell you about the rainbow bridge? Like, eighty-nine times?"_ he replied, sounding strained.

She grinned at her reflection in a window. "Don't think it was quite that many." She said.

"_Oh, wait, he just hit ninety. I think I'm done for the night." _

She snickered. "It's not even dark yet, stop being an infant."

"_Easy for you to say."_ He replied. _"You haven't been stuck here for almost two hours."_

"Everything ok?"

"_All's quiet. Not a soul in sight."_

(:):(:)

DNA at the scene. Ten maulings. Unknown animal. Reptilian, lupine, nothing like they've ever seen. Attacks in the night, missing equipment, missing men, blood drenched walls and no witnesses. Haunted. Possessed. Afraid to mine. Afraid to enter the tunnels. Transfers, forced labor. Firing the force and rehiring new ones. More killings. More disappearances. Bodies missing. Same DNA. Same strange signature. Same unfamiliar traces like nothing in the data base. Something the department has never seen.

But Banner had.

He reads the reports. Files and files of private words stuffed in rolls of encryption and hidden in a corner of cyberspace seldom traversed. The DNA strain was peculiar, distorted, but all too familiar to the scientist. Perhaps it was because he'd had so much experience reading DNA flowcharts that the subtle points jumped out at him like points on a map. Or maybe some stray part of his mind had memorized Thor's DNA signature and allowed for instant comparison. Most likely it was the latter.

These attacks, these deaths were done by a relative of Thor, or perhaps just a citizen of Asgard. Either way, one clear culprit came crashing to the forefront of his mind before any others. Neo Nazis, HYDRA, underground movements and Asgard. It all added up to a single person. And that was Loki.

"Oh my God." Tony whispered.

Banner looked at him, wondering if Stark had come to the same sobering conclusion as himself. But Tony was on an entirely different thread. He was reading soil samplings, taken from the area of the mine no doubt. An area that was unmistakable as they were sitting** right on top of it**.

A hidden look passed between Banner and Tony. Bruce was flushed, desperate looking. His eyes set instantly from Tony to Pepper both with a look of worry. "Tony." His voice whispered. "You've got to get her out. This is . . . she's not safe."

"Ahead of you." Tony replied, grabbing Pepper by her arm and pulling her out of her seat. His voice was going a mile a minute. His hands were shaking, though he tried to hide it. "Pepper, get out of here. Get on a plane, and get out of here. Now. I'll call you later. Ok."

Pepper looked at him. Just as stubborn as he could be. "What! No. I'm not going anywhere!"

Banner was beginning to fall apart. His hands were fists. Rogers leaned over, holding a forceful hand on his shoulder as if that would keep the Hulk back. It was obvious they were talking through some secret spy language Pepper did not understand.

"Pepper, **I am serious**." Tony whispered. His eyes looked into hers; he was completely ignoring the meeting now. "I can't do what I will need to if I am worried about your safety. Those agents outside will escort you to France, or China. I don't care, even the helicarrier will be safer than this. Take the chopper, I already told JARVIS to get it for you. Now get out of here."

Pepper waited, her eyes looking around the room again. Tony had already opened the door and waved the agents outside to come in. There was nothing she said that would change his mind.

"Stark?" Rogers asked from the end of the table. He was sitting on the opposite side of Bruce, keeping an eye on the possible entrance of the Hulk. Now Steve wished he had insisted on Clint coming with them. If anyone could talk the Banner out of the Hulk it was him for some inexplicable reason. If Rogers ever even considered ordering the Hulk to do any more than "Smash" he was liable to get a fist in his gut.

"Pepper's leaving." Tony said without further ado and like that Pepper was dragged away from him and across the room.

General Armanick watched the goings on as her calculated meeting suddenly began to unravel around her. In an attempt to interject, she half stood in her seat. "There is no reason for Miss Potts to-"

Tony cut her off at the calves. "Yes, there is. Agents, get her out of here."

Steve scrubbed his face with his hand, trying to process the insanity he had just been subject to for the past two hours.

Natasha tried to absorb everything at once. Her mind scrambled to catch up. She felt disconnected as the rooms guard, missing the private words that Banner and Stark had been sharing. "Clint, talk to you later, something big is about to happen."

* * *

so, the next chapter will be posted later today or tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 5

**Author note:** none today:)

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao (future Dr. Veterinarian PeechTao)**

Chapter 5

Clint back peddled, not trusting his feet to return him to the tunnel he'd just come from. The shadows around him seemed to become thicker, heavier, like a curtain descending on a stage. He couldn't trust his eyes, his ears. He felt like he could hardly trust in his link to Tony now. His boots slipped in something thick and viscous. only the flickering light of the now temperamental subway tunnels revealed what was most certainly stains of blood from almost his ankles down. it was like somehow he'd stepped right into the chest of a dead body and never knew it. For a frantic moment he was sure he'd been sliced in the leg by some invisible foe, but not only was his skin intact, there was no pain to go with it. The cold blood was definitely not his own and there was no way of telling how it got there on his boots

He reached the tunnel with Thor, seeing his arrow still stuck in the wall. At least he hadn't imagined that. But that didn't mean he was safe from hallucinations yet. Plain as day he witnessed a pack of running wolves flying down the tunnel away from him, yipping and howling. Their paws sounded like massive dogs thundering against the hollow tubes of the abandoned subway line. They must have been frightened off, either by him or the woman, hovering like an apparition over Thor's prone form.

For a split second the archer let his mind absorb all that had happened. Wolves in Manhattan. Underground. A woman appearing out of the dark like some specter from the Ghostbusters' library. Intuition kicked in and Clint pulled his bow taught, angling for the woman's head.

"Get off him!" he roared. "Get away or I swear I'll shoot you!"

The woman raised her head. Her face was like that of an angel, flawless and heart stopping. A peculiar sheen covered her countenance, giving her a distant and heavenly glow Clint couldn't understand. But after all the things that had happened to him in the past few minutes, he was given to believe nothing that stood before him. He approached cautiously, as if she may fall back and vanish like all the other apparitions that were already plaguing his beguiled mind. When they were within three feet of each other and she still hadn't vanished into thin air, he began to think that maybe she did exist.

So he didn't feel foolish for yelling at her again. "I said, back off lady." He barked.

"The archer."

Clint almost fell flat on his face when words came out of those perfect lips. He had been half convinced of his own insanity until she actually started making conversation.

She smiled at him, her posture like a mother soothing a damaged fawn. "I am sorry, a proper interview has not been apportioned to us. My given name is Frigga, the wife of Odin, and mother of Thor."

Now Clint thought he'd heard it all before. He had once heard a Russian spy claim to be a duck and proved it by quacking for three and a half hours until Natasha got sick of him and shot the guy in the leg. He'd heard the Hulk snore loud enough to topple a community center. He'd even heard Pepper Potts swear like a sailor when she found out Tony had dismantled her favorite hairdryer because he was missing a coil for some pet project of his. But nothing affected him as greatly as this little fallacy now assaulting his ears.

"Nice try, lady, what do you think I am, an idiot?" Clint replied, not dropping his guard. "No one can get between here and Asgard, Thor told me that himself, not without his strength and pretty as you are, I doubt you've got the same gusto in you that he's got."

She still smiled, as if expecting this from him. "But I am not in your presence, am I archer?" her porcelain hand reached up to take his arm, but Clint was not about to drop his guard. Fair warning given, he let the arrow fly, only to watch as it passed through her body and out the other side. It left her untouched. Dumbfounded, he knocked another arrow and let the next fly as well. It too skittered uselessly against the wall at her back.

"Is it now for me to understand I am unworthy of your trust, even as a member of the family of Thor?" she asked.

"I don't trust easy." Clint replied. He dropped his bow, not wanting to waste another arrow on a useless endeavor. "I haven't exactly had the best of encounters with members of Thor's family."

Now her look changed to sadness so overwhelming Clint felt the need to do whatever it took to get her smile returned. Then he mentally slapped himself for being such a moron.

"Yes," she said depressingly, "Love can transcend even the visage of ghouls and monsters. I love despite blemishes, the curse of every mother."

"That's some blemish you've got on your hands." Clint let slip. He regretted what that comment did to her, but he couldn't stop himself either.

She sighed, resting on her knees, one hand passing over the side of Thor's brow, as if to sweep away his hair but accomplishing nothing. She was like a phantom hovering before him. She continued to speak, even with her eyes pouring down on her silent son. "There is naught that can be uttered to soothe your spirit. Thor often speaks of those whom he calls friends and allies. Clint of Barton, you are the archer as I imagine."

"Just Clint Barton." He corrected. He'd said it enough to Thor, it was only naturally to keep correcting his family members too. "I'm not _of_ anything. It's just Clint Barton."

She looked perplexed.

Clint tossed up his hands. "Forget it. Never mind. Clint of Barton, that's me." A thought suddenly occurred to him. Something that didn't before and it was a testament to his innate preoccupation that made it so. "Hey, do you know what's wrong with him? Is that why you're here?"

She continued to stroke her son's brow, sitting beside his arm. "He is so strong. So much like his father. Oh, to think of him as a boy again! He was such a handful." She smiled, reminiscing over her old memories.

Clint felt like a heel standing over her, shooting her twice or trying too. He looked around for a second, attempting to figure out what he may do with himself. In the end he set his bow on the ground beside him and sat on one of the unused rails. He was nearly at eye level with the ghost now, speaking over Thor's prone form.

"I have not seen him in many months. It saddens my heart to not hear him and his cohorts carouse on and on about their journeys and the woes they have awakened. My, the four of them, heavens could they get themselves into grave misfortune."

Clint quirked up a corner of his mouth. "That sounds like him. But, look, he's not doing much now but worrying me to death. I don't know what's going on here, or what has happened to him. _Is_ Loki involved in this?"

She sighed. Her hands stilled, her face raised to Clint. "It is my fear that you speak the truth."

"So what's he done to him?"

"What befalls him now is the consequence of his own supremacy. The strength in him hath wrought the Odinsleep. If he had but been home, this may have been foreseen, readied. In this realm, little is assured."

Clint leaned over, his hands manipulating Thor's face once more. There was still a pulse, his eyes were steady, unchanging. "Is he dying?"

Now the smile returned. "You worry for him, archer."

"I do." He said sincerely.

"Then rest your heart. He will be well. Time it may take but health regained if there was nothing terrible affecting him by by Loki."

Clint set back some, visibly relaxing. "Well at least something is going right."

"He must be brought to Asgard. It is of the greatest importance. They have gone for the tesseract now in attempt to bring him back to us. I am a mother born of impatience and must see my child for myself. It is a trait, I admit, has been imparted upon my son."

"You can say that again. He isn't the most patient person I know." He patted Thor's chest with a hand. "How long will it take? To get him home with you?"

"Time here is altered then the world you know."

Clint sighed. "Great."

Her hand reached across to brush his arm, perhaps it was only his imagination feeling the soft electricity playing across his skin. "You have heart, archer."

At that, he pulled away from her. He didn't mean to exactly, but couldn't help himself. "The last time someone said I had heart, they took it from me." He told her.

"I know it." She replied. "Yet this does not mean you do not possess the heart of an Asgard warrior." Her eyes turned to the side, falling upon Mjolnir.

Clint followed her gaze.

She straightened suddenly, as if hearing something in the distance. "My moment in this realm is coming to a close. I must return to Asgard, there is little I can do—"

"No, wait!" Clint made to grab her, but he couldn't as his hand phased right though.

"Take care of my son. Loki has come, he will spread his tricks, there is not much time, trust nothing—"she stood, her steps taking her backwards.

"Wait, what's going on!"

"One will return for him. Take care, archer."

"**_Wait_**!"

The image faded until Barton was looking at little more than his two arrows trapped in the brick wall. His eyes went back to the left and right. The shadows, if it were possible, seemed to close in. The halls seemed darker, more monstrous then before. He gathered Thor's cape, determined to keep moving.

Behind him came the whispers of clawed feet and growls.

(:):(:)

As the meeting came to a screeching halt, the door flew open once more. At first, Tony assumed it was Pepper escaping the clutches of the agents. When it was obviously not, he settled back in his seat, at least temporarily.

The General's assistant scrambled in like a rat from a manhole. He skittered past the four, dropped to Armanick's ear, relayed his information, and then rushed away just as quickly. The typical paper-pusher or bad-news-bringer. Armanick's demeanor had at least seemed somewhat interested in what he had to say, half way through that changed to utter unrequited malice. The latter look was trained on Tony Stark who merely offered her a blank response.

As the door shut with the aid's retreat, Tony was the first to jump into conversation. "Oh, did you just now realize we're dragging out all your dirty laundry or do you want to share with the whole class?" With that he slid a few keys around on his phone, controlling the television monitors, most likely on both ends of the communication to the major world leaders. What he displayed was enough to turn Armanick's simple malice to total rage.

Crime scene photos showing tunnels bathed in blood. Thousands of bullet holes with no bodies, shells or guns. Unexplained attacks. Ferocious maulings. Recordings of screams, gunshots, and howls. Bodies mysteriously disappearing and reappearing.

The General flipped a switch on her hidden console and suddenly the screens went black.

Tony placed his phone back on the table in front of him. "My Kung Fu is strong." He said.

"I have no doubt in my mind." She seethed. "Neither do I deny that fact that you may have just made this new initiative of digging our country out of the proverbial debt hell-hole an impossibility now!"

"Well, you can affirm the fact that the United States government now owes me one. After all, weaponising Vibranium, then passing it out to the highest bidder is just idiotic. It's actually so far beyond stupidity that the only person who could have come up with this idea and sold it to the DOD was a reincarnated version of Hitler. That man was a talker, but by golly-jee he just did not have all his screws tightened right, Cap?"

Steve was still shaking his head, unable to believe what he'd been seeing.

Beside him, Banner was looking at his interlaced fingers. In the silence the room had fallen into it was obvious to hear the small chant he began repeating.

"Bruce Banner. Hulk. Scientist. Avenger. Researcher. Musician. Good guy."

Tony looked severely at the general now. "Now see what you've done? Banner's about to Hulk out and just give you the wallop you probably deserve." As an aside to Banner, Tony whispered. "I never knew you were a musician."

"Not the time." Banner snarled.

"What does all that science crap mean?" Natasha said, breaking up everyone's calm. Until now it was easy to forget she was there at all. But when she wanted to be noticed, everyone turned her way without question.

For her benefit, Tony grabbed his unattended iPad back from Banner and turned the display toward her. "It means, in simple human terms, that the Department of Defense has been screwing the pooch for the last six months. A vein of Vibranium was found, probably after the Manhattan attack right underneath the city. In fact, back in Cappy's hay-day this entire building was the original fleet-street of his crime fighting sweat shop. My father owned the building, did his research here. It makes sense if he had access to Vibranium and no one else knew it."

"He told me what made the shield was the last bit he had." Rogers pointed out.

"Yeah, he lied to me too, so don't feel left out." Stark replied. "Anyway, over the years since the World War's died out of fashion and my father moved to greener pastures, this place was still used as the hot-spot of the DOD. New building, same Vibranium foundation. Get it? Blow up Manhattan, suddenly some joe-shmoe picks up on the vein and the DOD feels they're sitting on a gold mine. Or a Vibranium mine. They shut down the subway tunnels in the area, allowing them to dig up what they want in peace. The trouble is it isn't as hunky dory as they want everyone to believe. Crap's happening. Isn't it?"

The General was still silent, this time it was obvious she was weighing her options.

"All right. Now let _me_ sum this up." Steve's voice was calculated, weighing all the information he had been slammed with. "You are telling me that back in the forties I was lied to? That a vein of Vibranium existed under that building I was led too, the building with the factory that changed me, and this place was erected on top of that vein. Right?"

Finally the Armanick decided to play ball. "That is correct. Captain."

Steve went on, one eye just as trained on Bruce as Tony was. "And this vein, you have _full awareness_ of its potential and only decided to weaponize it. But you are having issues. Big issues. _Monster ghost in the dark sized issues_. That right?"

The general shifted a little, obviously not used to being put on the spot. Ever. "That is correct. We have been led to believe that this problem has arisen from another worldly source. Something SHIELD prefers to specialize in."

"What kind of source? What trace elements have you found?" Tony quizzed.

Banner was breathing slowly, through his mouth and out his nose. He knew as well as anyone the implications of Vibranium, under a major city, when the likes of a suddenly well organized group of HYDRA assassins were circling like sharks. He'd already identified the DNA of an Asgardian, obviously Tony either missed that data, or didn't know what he was looking at. Before the general had a chance to answer the question, Bruce launched to his feet.

Natasha drew her sidearm, momentarily terrified of the only nightmare that had ever been drilled into her brains. Tony was half standing. Steve's hand was on Bruce's arm.

Bruce pulled his hands away from the both of them, took a deep breath, and let it out slow. "I can't be here right now." Bruce said to everyone. "Gimme a minute to get my groove, and I'll be back. But this is seriously damaging my calm."

He walked out.

With a flick of his head, Rogers commanded the SHIELD agents outside the door to follow.

Tony sat again, leaning against his chair back. "Well," he said, "I'm waiting for it."

"You'll forgive me if I don't think this meeting is going quite as intended." Armanick said coldly. "If we thought this was as large of an issue as you are making it out to be, then we would not have agreed to reschedule this meeting three times already. And the information is right in front of you."

Her seething demeanor had zero effect on Tony.

"Yeah, I see the data, but it is always funnier to hear the army say for themselves how much of an idiot they are."

Armanick stiffened, but before her temper shot off, she responded calmly. "According to these charts submitted after the original New York attack, it seems there is a commonality between this latest threat and one of your own." Another file slid across the table. The graphs would look like static to normal eyes, but with Stark scanning the information no meaning was lost. Like a DNA trace, it was obvious who the general was referring to. Thor. This new alien currently slithering through the unmanned pipelines of the New York subway was nothing short of an inhabitant of Asgard. But it was worse than that. Thor would have known if anything of his world was transferred to this. He would never have kept the information to himself. So, they had one Asgard escapee. What else could that spell for them?

"What is it?" Steve asked.

Tony threw the file his way, not expecting the World War throw back to understand a word on it. So instead he gave the short, sweet, Starky summation. "Oh it just keeps getting better." Stark went on. "Some Asgard refugee has apparently been traipsing through the tunnels. Guess what he's probably after?"

Steve covered his mouth with his hand. "Tony, my shield stops Thor's hammer. Hulk can't even bend it in half, what happens if he gets ahold of it and—"

Tony threw up his hands. "Yeah. Exactly. Now we're on the same page at least."

"Oh my God." Natasha whispered. "Clint's in the tunnels."

"Should we call it in? Barton deserves a warning-" Steve started saying.

"I just spoke with him, he didn't say a thing about needing help. Business as usual." Natasha answered.

"You're sure?" Steve asked.

Natasha's certainty wavered. Why wouldn't she be positive? What would make her doubt the voice on the end of the line? "I thought it was."

"Let's not get his panties twisted yet." Tony said.

Steve took over. "Go check on Banner, make sure Hulk didn't just go flying down the stairs to find Clint. Then get him back here and call Agent Barton again. Make sure nothing is wrong."

Romanov headed for the door.

"So," Steve said, turning toward Armanick. "What is this about a murderous ghost?"

* * *

so, there's the next chapter as promised. i still have finished writing this book yet, so be patient. i'm heading into our 2 weeks of Hell . . .i mean finals. 8 finals? bring it on.


	7. Chapter 6

**Author note:** Now, its going to get a little weird...

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 6

He knew he wasn't imagining it this time. The shadows really were moving. They fell closer and closer together, regardless of the streamline lighting from one end of the abandoned tunnels to the other. He could almost feel the breath of creatures waiting in the darkness, lurking in the shadows waiting for him to step out of the light. He'd heard them for nearly twenty minutes already.

Claws tapping on the ground. The hiss of a serpent. Snapping jaws. Growls. Barks. Yips. The brush of snake scales on brick. Inwardly Clint heard everything but saw nothing but swift glances of eyes shining through the darkness before they were gone. A leg, tail, leaping from shadow to shadow as the growls returned more guttural then before.

He tried to keep his head down, pushing on through the darkness, trying every manhole he came too. He had the map of the tunnel network on every wall. Eventually he would hit the occupied sections and get out of this death trap maze.

He could smell the blood. Before he even saw it, he smelled it like a pile of dog crap stuck to a shoe. It took him just as long to find its source. It was all over him. Ankles down were smeared in red. Thor's back, his arms and legs were painted as if they'd been dragged through a pool of ketchup. At first Clint thought he must have caught on something. He had been dragging Thor, either by the armpits, or by his cape for nearly two and a half hours. But as he had suspected before he even decided to do it, Thor was perfectly fine. Nothing beside a minor abrasion was on him.

But there was the blood.

He wanted to call Tony again, but Frigga's words echoed unwillingly through his mind, as if she were still hovering beside him.

_Trust nothing. Loki's tricks_.

Things didn't add up. It didn't make sense that Tony had never called him to check in. It didn't make sense that every single exit was blocked, that not a single agent could hear him, that the darkness was taking over the still lit tunnel. None of it made sense!

When Clint turned the corner, the one that may lead him into safety, to the manned areas of the subway system, his heart dropped to his feet. Sticking out of the brick wall was his single arrow. He had been going in circles.

It wasn't possible.

He never got lost, not like this.

_Loki's tricks._

His mind was swimming. He couldn't take it. He had to call Tony. He needed some voice, some assurance beyond his own. Maybe he was losing his mind. Maybe it was all true. Maybe he'd lost it a long time ago and the others were just stringing him along out of pity.

_"Help is on the way, I told you that."_ Tony's voice blared nonchalantly. _"Stop trusting ghost women, they're no good for you. You're acting like you've never been in the dark before. Is that one of your phobias too? God, I gotta start keeping a tick-off list, here Clint. First we'll put brother issues, after that needles and Natasha wielding them, then how about a little dark tunnels with ghouls and goblins?"_

"Look, Stark!" Clint shouted into his comm. "I've been waiting for this back up for long enough, No one has come. No patrols, no rotations, a big fat nothing. Now you get your shiny metal butt out of that chair and get me the Hell out of this tunnel!"

That's when the first wolf attacked.

He'd convinced himself they weren't real. Just floating ghouls, the opposite of the benevolent light Frigga offered him. They couldn't hurt him. They couldn't touch him any more than he could them.

But Clint was wrong.

A solid body flung him sideways into the tunnel wall. His heel caught on the rail tie and spilled him backwards on his quiver. Six arrows toppled out. He reached for them first, only to feel the hot jaws of a snarling canine clamp down on him. Clint screamed, grabbing an arrow with his free hand and jabbing it down into the wolf. It was only the glance at the tip that showed him his folly. It was an exploding tip.

Abandoning the others, Clint rushed to his feet as the wolf turned and snarled at the object protruding through his chest. Clint fell against Thor, huddling beside him for safety as the arrow detonated. With the force of the concussion so close, he lost his senses, turning blind and deaf all at once. It was his only grace that the wolves have been affected as well.

He had to get up, to move before they could gather enough to rush again. He couldn't think of how it wasn't true, how none of them could possibly exist in a subway tunnel under Manhattan. Instead he blinked himself to awareness even before he could hear. He flexed his hand, feeling the pierced holes through his flesh that he forced his body to ignore. He's had worse.

He pulled his bow from his back, ready with an arrow knocked. He pressed his back against the wall, allowing only attacks from the right and left. They would come, inevitably they would but he didn't expect them so quickly.

The darkness was broken by the lights of a dozen shinning eyes. The growling was fiercer now than ever. They howled like a pack driven on the scent of his blood and the death of their comrade. There was little hesitation. He was rushed on both sides.

He took down the one on the left first, resulting to using his bow as a club against the second. By the third and fourth, he had time to knock an arrow and buried one in a wolf's head and the second in the chest. The wolf he clubbed leaped with life, clamping down on his pant leg but mercifully missing meat. Clint pulled his knife from his boot and ended the lupine's life. The remaining two advanced and retreated, staying just out of reach of his knife but not allowing him to pull his bow. With their distraction, Clint nearly missed the other four that had materialized from the blackness and grabbed a hold of Thor. The Asgardian was being pulled into the shadows.

"No!" Clint exclaimed. He rushed over, the two wolves on his heels, nipping at his legs as he swung his bow to get the others away. As the wolves continued their pace of attack and retreat, Clint did the only thing that he could. He grabbed a grappling arrow tip, locked it in place and launched it at the ceiling conduits. He pulled with all his might, using the counter weight of his bow's tension to drag the lead weight that was Thor's prone form up, and into the tangle of metal arteries over their heads. Mjolnir rested on the tunnel floor, unwilling to have Clint's unworthy human hands be the cause of its rising with its master. When it was obvious Thor wouldn't be in any immediate danger, Clint's attention returned to the wolves.

He was surprised they weren't on him already, waiting with their sagging jaws to rip him limb from limb. He hadonly his knife and half a quiver of arrows to go through before he would resort to tearing them apart by hand, if it was possible.

But they didn't come.

He stood and waited and they didn't come. He banged his bow limbs against the subway and they didn't come. Nothing but the lifeless darkness answered back. Until, an entirely new set of eyes met him through the gloom. These were larger, as fierce as the wolves but four times as large. And they were staring him eye to eye.

Clint staggered back, pressing himself against the wall again. There was nothing this time to his left, only those two large hovering eyes glaring into his very soul.

Then, they rose up, climbing higher until Clint was looking two feet into the air above him. With a flash like lightning the darkness banished away and standing before him was the largest impossible creature Clint could ever imagine. A wolf, the size and breadth of the Hulk himself lumbered over him with jaws wide enough to swallow Clint in a single taste.

Hawkeye pulled his bow, knocked two arrows at once with whatever tip he thought may be effective. We pulled back and let them fly, watching as two incendiary tips attempted to sizzle their way through the wolf's broad side. The wolf just stood and took the abuse, shaking his coat to dislodge the ineffectual arrows. Clint ran forward, meaning to catch him off guard and for a moment it worked. The wolf backed away, snarling. Clint set a new tip and as the jaws opened, he pulled back to aim the arrow directly down the wolf's gullet. But he never got the chance to let it go before the beast recovered. Its head shot forward, knocking Clint back as its jaws slam shut on his bow rather than his head.

The arrow that was on the bow string flew wild, striking the wall and releasing a hail of bullets in all directions. The wolf snarled as a few made contact with its pelt, but Clint was more concerned about shooting himself then enjoying the momentary victory.

Rushing forward with teeth bared, he pounced upon Hawkeye. Clint retreated, banked to the right and slashed out with his knife as the wolf's momentum dragged him forward. The wolf accepted a cut to his face, but turned instantly to snap at Clint's head. The soldier leaped back, only to be grabbed by the leather strap of his quiver across his chest. The wolf tossed him up, striking him with a large thick paw. Clint hit the ground twenty meters away.

He quickly shoved to his feet, willing the stars that clouded his vision to disappear to nothing. In an instant the wolf was atop him. Clint struck up to catch him in the chest. The wolf howled and snapped down. Clint flattened against the ground and was spared death by inches. The full weight of the creatures held him down as Clint struggled to find his breath. He had only his knife, slicing fiercely wherever seemed vital in the cloud of fur blocking his vision.

His hands grew slick with blood. He didn't know the origin, whether his own bitten hand or if he was gaining any terrain against the monster. He had to get the wolf off him. He had to breathe or else this fight was going to be over very quick.

Something he hit struck a chord with the wolf, for the monster's muzzle came down against him. Clint took his chance and raked the edge of his knife across his nose.

The creature growled fiercely and back pedaled, scraping at its nose frantically.

Clint twisted up and onto his feet. Desperate for anything now, he tapped his comm again. His mind told him it was useless, a trick, but he tried anyway. He had to hear Tony, anything that wasn't the sound of thundering wolf hearts was better than this.

It is in that moment he first catches sight of Loki. The real, living and breathing Loki.

"_Clint? Clint can you hear me?"_ Came Tony's voice into his ear. But what he saw made his world shatter at his knees.

Past the wolf's massive leg Loki stood, his mouth moving to form the words Clint heard Tony speak.

_Loki's tricks. Trust nothing._

"She warned me." Clint whispered. His eyes fixed on the fallen brother of Thor.

"_No one is coming."_ Loki answered in Tony Stark's voice. _"And no one is going to save you."_

"Maybe I don't need saving." He spat fiercely. He swung out from around the wolf's leg, sweeping his bow up at the same time and tugging one of his last arrows from his quiver. "Catch this."

He fired, his aim right for Loki's eye.

* * *

YAY! another chapter down. just so you know, this book has taken a life of its own. I'm still not finished writing it, and it is now well over 36,000 words. every book will be tied into this one and dare say there is room for a spinoff?

stay tuned, and let me know what you think. i have 4 finals this week and 3 next week to contend with so i like your kind thoughts.

for a good visualization of this chapter, please see the book cover i worked tirelessly on. :)


	8. Chapter 7

**Author note:** enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 7

"Anything?" Tony asked for perhaps the fifth time in as many seconds. Natasha wasn't even looking his way. She was tapping furiously at her comm, just as everyone else in the room was doing.

"Nothing. I can't even get the auxiliary teams. It's all dead airspace." Natasha responded like a robot. Her voice was devoid of all emotion, but the three knew better. Given a proper target they'd see just what sort of feelings were welling up in her. The first of which would be murderous.

"Something's gone wrong." Steve voiced everyone's thoughts.

"The last attack was on the source itself." Banner said. He was hardly calmer than before, but at least he was in more control. "If Loki's found it, then these shadow games he has been playing have worked. Most likely our teams are dead by now."

Natasha flicked her head to him. Her target found.

Banner held his hands up as if in supplication. It was in everyone's favor that she not leap across the table and throttle him. "Everyone said it. There were no miners left in those tunnels. What're a few splintered groups of SHIELD ops going to do against something they can't even see. Some of these DNA traces are from wolves and giant snakes. Sure we've had worse, but not if they haven't been warned about it. They walked into a death trap."

"I'm not staying here." Natasha announced. She turned heel, heading for the door before she did something she really regretted, like shooting a three star general in the face in front of three witnesses. Sure Tony could claim blindness and Banner could say he had hulked out and couldn't remember a thing, but then Steve was as stand-up as a new pair of stove-pipe jeans. She'd have to come back and finish her vengeance in the dark.

Banner continued to speak, even as she made her exit. "Steve, If Loki gets that metal, even Thor's hammer couldn't bust through Cap's shield. Nothing could stop it, nothing we know."

"Just means Loki's downgraded from interplanetary terror watch list to home-grown HYDRA." Steve mused, pushing to his feet.

"'Nough chat, let's go grab our boys before there nothing left to do but scrape them up with a spatula." Tony said. He turned to Banner and tapped his chest with his finger. "Time to get mad."

"Get your suit." Banner replied. "I'm already mad."

Steve waited until they had both rushed from the room before him. The Captain only tarried a moment. He looked over his shoulder at the General who was standing also, flabbergasted that they were all simply walking out. She was protesting, but no one really paid enough attention to that. She was pleading with Steve now, something about the DOD never imagining the blowback of this effort. That they only looked forward to the future of creating a better market for commerce between the world powers. She was a patriot, wanting to help her country. That was all.

Steve had some pity for her, but his pity was fast being used up after months of seeing the crap people did in the name of the country he loved.

"Ma'am." He said, his voice tended to silence people. After all, he had a reputation that proceeded him. The soldier who survived the World War. The one who made the sacrifice to save the world. The one who led his team against an alien invasion and commanded the presence of Ironman, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and the two deadliest assassins on the planet. When he spoke, people shut up to listen.

The pleas stopped, she waited in supplication. The cool demeanor was gone. She was a dog waiting for bones from a superior.

"There were a lot of mistakes you've made since accepting your detail here. You've put your men in danger they could have avoided. You continued to let them die even though you could have pulled them out. You put my team in danger by bringing them to a meeting they knew nothing about. You knowingly allowed _my_ team to enter the tunnels where murders have continued to occur. You've wasted my time and their lives. But you know what your biggest mistake was?"

He could see the terror in her eyes, but the Captain kept on.

"The biggest mistake was letting the only man the Black Widow loves be trapped in mortal danger. You put Iron Man's brothers in a Hell hole they may never get out of. The only lives the Hulk chooses to preserve are at risk because of your actions. And frankly, I'm not too happy about it either." He walked out, slamming the door shut behind him.

* * *

hehehe! awe, Steve:) look for the next chapter maybe even later today depending on how i feel after my radiology final:)


	9. Chapter 8

**Author note:** Today's shout out goes to... Canada!

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 8

Clint had no defense against the massive wolf. As his eyes fixed on Loki, the wolf knocked him off his feet. Clint tried to use his knife, but it was ripped from his hand with the scrape of a clawed foot. He couldn't give up. He pulled out his bow, swinging the limb as his arrows were gone, but the wolf merely snapped down on the bow. His teeth rent the riser in half, snapping the limbs, sending the string into Clint's face where the force of it drew blood.

The wolf pulled the remains of the bow from his hand and threw it down the tunnels. Clint could do little but lie on his back, staring up into the bloody jaws of the wolf and pray death would come before Loki did. But his hopes were shattered. Loki would never allow his pet to rob him of the moment his glutinous soul needed. Clint crawled away on his palms and heels as the wolf moved back and allowed its master to move ahead of him.

Loki was standing in all his grandeur. His golden horned helmet sweeping up and back. His battle clothes clanked with gold raiment and plates of armor. Clint continued back until his hand met something he could use to defend himself. The bodies of wolves were gone, fading into black dust littering the tunnel tracks. Through a pile of sand and wolf bones, his fingers clasped onto the hilt of a weapon.

The tyrant grinned. "Oh, and what does the child intend to do with that?" he said, words dripping in venom.

Clint tugged, but the object wouldn't move. His broke his eye contact with Loki for only a second and looked down at what he held. With a spirit filling with lead, he saw Mjolnir.

The split second his eyes dropped from Loki was all the devil needed to rush forward and seal his hand over Clint's throat. Clint responded automatically. He chopped at Loki's hand with his, expecting to break the hold like he could with a human. But Loki was slightly more than that. He held on, pressing tighter until even Clint's frantic moves to stop him were all left useless.

Clint could only listen and watch as Loki's face blurred before him.

It was in this hurried moment his world took a sudden turn for the better. Inexplicably, who appeared not ten feet away just at the junction of the tunnel?

Captain spangle pajamas America.

Clint struggled still. He tried to tuck his feet under Loki but the Asgardian had him trapped. He gargled, trying to force out any word that could gain his team-leader's attention.

Steve went up to the arrow in the wall. He inspected the arrow Clint had fired into the cement and mortar. After pulling it free, he turned. He was looking dead into Clint's eyes.

It must have been some sight to see, a massive wolf blocking the tunnel with Loki and Clint between its paws. The steady thrum of the wolf's breathing was the only sound echoing off the walls.

Steve looked on for what may have been days in Clint's eyes. His vision blurred, air still being robbed from his lungs with no hope of relief.

"Ca—" he whispered as he lay dying.

Why wasn't he helping? Why was he just standing there like a blind idiot?

Tony's voice filled the air. The real Tony, feeding through the comm in Steve's mask. There was a brief conversation, and then he was gone. Clint's rescue, walking away without a second look.

"Ah," the Asgardian said. "How I love this game. How I love the weak, stupid minds of you insolent maggots. All the strength I remembered. Scars of a warrior. How I have missed this Hawk. How do you like my servant, Fenrir?"

The archer felt Loki's second hand crush against his chest. He felt his very soul ripping forward, out of his psyche. His very being was splitting in half. All the pain and horror came welling up again. His right hand clamped against the handle of Mjolnir as his left tried to peel Loki's away from his heart.

"Your being. Your existence. I told you once it was mine, do you think I have forgotten it?" Loki sneered. His fist slammed against the human's chest, feeling the pulse of his dying heart flickering beneath his fingers. "Be blessed, archer. _You_ _have __**heart**_."

The wolf, Fenrir, roared.

As hard as Clint tried to lift it, even as the blackness folded over his eyes, he never expected to succeed. When the weight lifted, his arm moved automatically. It swung in an arch from right to left and suddenly he could breathe. His vision cleared. He caught only a glimpse of Loki, his face smashed sideways by the might of Mjolnir wielded in Clint's hand.

Loki landed only a few feet away. He stood, spinning in fright and shock all at once. His wolf roaring in protest.

"Impossible!" Loki screamed.

Fenrir launched forward, jaws bared to meet Clint Barton, swinging the hammer of Thor.

* * *

sorry for the little chapter!

this book is going to top out around 50,000 words. Woot!


	10. Chapter 9

**NEW AUTHOR NOTE: tiny change has been made to the story, a silly little clerical error has been corrected! thanks Jessica!  
**

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 9

By the time Natasha reached the manhole cover, she knew something was wrong. A huddle of three SHIELD operatives circled the manhole, looking bored. The minute the Black Widow started on their path, each one straightened out. It was blatantly obvious she was not in the mood for a cheerful exchange. The only thought swamping her now was her own failure. Failure to see the danger. To realize something was wrong. For not insisting on staying with Clint. They were always better together then apart. Why had she separated from him? Why had she ever agreed to it?

"When was the last check in?" she demanded of the first agent she saw. She didn't even know his name. Too many knew faces had popped up in SHIELD since so many agents were lost in the Helicarrier attack.

Not far behind her came the boom of a familiar green giant making his presence known.

"Three minutes ago." The first agent reported. He started sweating the minute he saw her. Now with the idea of an unrestrained Hulk obviously on his way over, he just wanted to drop his gun and run.

"Three minutes?" Widow snarled. "Did anyone come up? Or did you just take their word for it?"

Behind her the doors to the defense building crashed outward. The Hulk pounded his hands off the pavement, demolishing the hoods of two cars in the process.

The three SHIELD operatives took half steps backwards, ready to run for their lives.

But, for what he was worth the man in front tried his best to answer. "I . . . No. no physical contact."

"And you didn't think that was odd?" Natasha grabbed the man by his shirt collar, ignoring the fact that the Hulk had spied her from a distance and was now thundering over, thrashing everything in his path. "Two and a half hours and not a soul comes out of those pipes and you don't think that was odd?!" She shoved him away, loving the look of his stumbling form trying to gain his balance as the Hulk tumbled the world upside down. She hated new guys. She could just smell the fresh SHIELD training on him. He was like the typical grunt thrown in a suit and told to be Avenger support staff.

She could hear the familiar repolser jets of Iron Man hovering overhead. It was about time he showed back up.

"_**WHERE**_?" The Hulk voice had a physical property of its own. Even Natasha couldn't keep her balance as the mere force of his air pushing out knocked her over. But she hardly needed to answer. The minute her body moved, he saw the manhole and his decision making was over. The two hands flew up and crushed down; almost tearing her apart had Captain America not come out of nowhere and pulled her out of danger. Tony set down beside them. All they could do was stand and wait (and maybe keep out of the way) as the Hulk tore the street apart.

"What the suits say?" Tony asked, watching Hulk smash.

"Crap." Natasha muttered. "No one's been out of those tunnels."

"Took a swing around town." He replied. "Hate to tell you, but I don't recognize any of those SHIELD monkeys."

Her face flicked to his metal mask. She looked at her own reflection, for a minute trying to make sense of it.

"I mean those three you just kept from shooting in their kneecaps were probably HYDRA. They certainly weren't in any of JARVIS's SHIELD files." He elaborated. "I just sent a friendly message to Fury. Apparently he hasn't heard from anyone for hours. Pepper gave him the only update he's had since the meeting started. Four planes are hanging out on the perimeter about to knock the building over just in case they need to for some reason."

Natasha pulled her side arm. Without any ado, she buried six bullets in the backs of the retreating operatives' legs. Perfect shots in their knees. She flipped her hair at Stark, baiting him.

"Oh, come on, don't hold that one against me." He said.

"Shut up, Stark."

"Is he sending someone now?" Steve asked.

"He's practically hovering overhead right now." Tony replied.

When the hole was large enough, about four seconds after he'd started to make it, the Hulk crashed down into the subway tunnel and took off in the first direction he found, whether it was the correct one or not. Tony was next, offering a hand out to Natasha. The ladder was officially part of a building three blocks away, so her only other option was jumping the twenty five feet straight down.

"Want a lift?" he asked.

She scowled at him and jumped.

"I'm paying for that comment aren't I?" he called down.

"Not yet you aren't." came her curt reply.

Steve offered a small grin his way. He had just about decided to jump down himself when his feet shifted on the uneven pavement. All at once his knees rocketed up into his chest then fell out from under him as the ground broke away under his feet. Steve dropped into free fall. He twisted to straighten out, unsure of what had happened. An explosion rocked the very atmosphere. His fall accelerated until his back was thrown into the solid metal chest of Tony.

Iron Man grabbed him out of the air and all at once they were rocketing down the tunnel, away from the opening in the sidewalk outside of the Defense Building. Or, what had been the defense building. The edge of Steve's vision caught the sight of a second fiery explosion following the first that knocked him off his feet. Glass and concrete detonated in a concussive hail. The world vibrated as the building spun on an axis of rebar and metal struts. In less than a minute, the building came crashing down right on top of them.

(:):(:)

Steve blacked out. He wasn't sure for how long. Consciousness flew back to him like the shock of an electric current. He was on his feet before his body even realized it had been knocked over.

"Stark!" he called. "Romanov?"

The Hulk came thumping through the dark, a little dusty but no worse for wear. Not far from him, Natasha picked herself up, shaking rubble out of her short tresses.

"All limbs accounted for." She said.

"I think I stubbed a toe." Tony said, coming up from behind Steve.

They came together, standing in a ring as their eyes drifted upwards. Most of the ceiling held. Layer upon of layer of concrete keeping the world above where it was. But surviving the fall of the building did little to improve their psyche. How many people were inside? How many of those people were dead?

"God, Steve." Tony whispered, looking through the window of concrete to the world outside.

"Not now." Rogers instructed resolutely. "You said the helicarrier is here, or almost here.. State officials should be brought up to speed by now. We have bigger issues down here. When we finish, we'll get help. We have to keep our head in the game right now. Widow?"

Natasha's hands were flexed, her electronic cuffs buzzing, but she at least gave the Captain the courtesy of her attention.

"You and Tony team up, take the west end while I head after Hulk. We'll circle back at the far side of the South Annex where both tunnels box off."

Black Widow gave Iron Man an appalled look.

The metal shoulders gyroed up and down in a shrug.

"Yeah, get over it, the both of you unless either the very human in the metal shell or the pretty assassin in the cat suit wants to go and follow after that." He indicated the blown out walls of the tunnel, the shattered lighting, and the half-collapsed ceiling. The Hulk had gotten over the sight of a building being blown up in the center of Manhattan faster than the rest of them. He was already heading down the hallway. Given the alternative, both Tony and Natasha headed off together in the opposite direction.

_That's what I thought,_ Steve considered. He started down the tunnel after the Hulk's wreckage. His mind went back to the General, sitting at that table where he left her. Did that mean she didn't get out? Was she dead already?

Did she deserve it?

He swallowed back these feelings. He had seen enough death and destruction lately to push this away like all the rest. The fireman, cops, SHIELD could handle clean up. Steve's focus now had to be finding that Vibranium and keeping Loki's hands off of it. Now it was obvious he had little time left to do both.

The Hulk had gotten further then Steve thought. After all, he could hardly fit into the abandoned subway. Eventually a bottleneck emerged ahead with a ceiling low enough that the Hulk was forced to stop and tear the brick mortar away from each other. It was bad for the Hulk, but a God-send for Steve who was able to at least catch up.

"Hulk?" he called ahead.

The monster turned on him, roaring like an ogre. It was obvious he was frustrated. His fist slammed against the edge of the overhang, every wall shuttered.

"Trapped!" The Hulk complained.

Captain America held his hands out in an attempt to keep the Hulk's bad temper trained off of him. "I know. Give me a minute to check out the hall, ok? Back me up? Make sure nothing gets behind me and if they do, just tear it apart, got it?"

The Hulk brought his fist down only two feet from Captain America's foot. "No! Don't listen to stupid man in suit. Want Archer!" His fist came up and slammed the tunnel floor again before spinning around and pulling down an entire track of overhead conduits. He stood there, hunched over with his bloodshot eyes threatening to pop out of his head.

"I'm gonna find him." Captain said, trying to put him at ease as he angled himself along that perimeter wall and into the tunnel the Hulk could not fit within. "Just stay a minute. I'll run ahead."

As Steve jogged down the hall, he missed the sudden open palm that went sailing up behind him. Missed, until it came into contact with his back. Captain America was flung head over heels thirty feet down the hall until he picked himself up from a twisted heap.

"_You hurry_!" The Hulk growled.

Steve shot the Hulk a dirty face he knew was masked by the shadows. Sure. He'd hurry, if only to keep the guy at bay for a little while. The big guy was getting better at being handled but that didn't mean they could take their eyes off him for too long. Trusting him alone around any human not surrounded in an anti-death metal coating was still a mistake. On their first meeting he had tried to crush Natasha and his unsuccessful attempt in that area was an obvious sore spot. He didn't like to lose either, which kept tensions between Banner's other half and Thor near boiling point as well.

Steve wasn't sure what he could even do about that, so he let the though slip away. He had to keep focused on more important things, like finding Thor and Clint intact.

As Steve swung around to get a better look at the path before him, he saw the first sign that Clint had ever been in the tunnels at all. A single arrow was stuck in the wall to his left about thirty feet in front of him. From there the hall continued straight or banked right. Rail ties followed in all directions with nothing but the intermittent subway lighting to cast any glow in the dusk.

The captain reached forward and grabbed the arrow out of the wall. Inspection held nothing. No blood, a relief and mystery at the same time. Clint didn't often miss. He could hit a target two hundred yards away while facing the opposite directions using only his teeth and one arm.

Steve looked to his right and ahead into the tunnel, wondering which direction Clint could have gone. He had just about chosen to head right when another echoed boom came from Hulk up the hall. Not wanting to be out of sight long, Steve headed back to the other form of Bruce Banner with the object in his hand. He tapped his comm.

"Natasha, Tony, I've found something of Clint's, they've definitely came this way."

"_That's nice, Cap, I think he came this way too." _Tony relayed. "_In fact, I think you should get over here right now. Miss Widow-maker's found the Vibranium, and a big problem is standing in our way."_

Steve exited the tunnel, holding the arrow out for the Hulk to see. The Hulk yanked the small article from Captain America and smashed it in his fingers.

"What do you mean? Have you located Loki?"

"_No, but the massive ten-story snake is a fitting replacement I think. If trouble's here, Clint can't be far from it."_

"Got it. Hulk, let's go get Iron Man."

"_Better get here sooner than later."_ Romanov said over the link. _"Because I'm a little busy with about eighty-five HYDRA goons right now."_

Steve started at a dead run, struggling to keep pace with the Hulk who tore off before he could even move. He left the tunnel behind, missing in his desperation to keep up the long trail of bloody footsteps he left on the floor.

:(:):(:)

"Cap's on his way," Tony relayed needlessly.

"Good for them." Natasha replied through gritted teeth. She was in the midst of all-out fight mode. The part of her mind that was consumed in plots, plans, the past, and her need to find Clint all faded away until she was little more than a body and brain. She worked with such automated movements it was second nature. She hardly thought, just progressed. From one fallen body to the next she threw herself into the throng of men dressed in black who filled the tunnels leading to the east end. She left the massive Vibranium-plated snake to Tony and whatever other Avenger decided to come up the hall next. They had more room to move, as the beast had stuffed itself in the space provided by an abandoned rail platform. The stair cases leading out had been long ago sealed off, by the DOD or just the Manhattan attack, it was difficult to tell.

Again, Natasha left that to the others. These men before her were the only object of her interest now. She would bend every back, break every leg, and crush whatever hanging nethers offered their parts to her grasp. She hurled herself into the throng, her own safety lost to the wind as she went. Behind her Tony took his role on. He was trying to defeat the impossibly existing snake.

His LED readouts scanned up, over the shifting body of the massive snake. It would be but a matter of time, seconds only before the large creature bore down upon him and swallowed him into its churning metal guts. Iron Man did all he could to avoid the possibility. He dove and dodged until there was hardly a part of him not covered in sweat or crushed in metal armor. He turned with a strike of hand pulsars, sheering off one large metal fang before the beast hit the empty tunnel beside him. The large head pulled back, fully serpentine as its gears and copper plates shifted and turned, reflecting the dank light like so many magnificent scales. The fins framing the fully fanged mouth flared to the sides like the sails. A perfectly deadly viper, nearly too large to fit in the space allowed. It struck out with a mind all its own, weaving back and forth in the tunnel. The scales along its back continued to slice in opposing directions, like the teeth on a saw as it stripped layer after layer of Vibranium out of the tunnel's exposed mine.

Iron Man flew sideways, coming along the side of the creature's massive body. He hid along its length, hoping to go unnoticed for a time. If such were possible he may have the chance to breathe out a single breath in a vain attempt to collect himself.

The serpent turned its colossal bulk; nearly sliding directly over its victim had Iron Man's nimbleness not taken him away in time. The serpent struck down with its fangs bore once more, and Iron Man put all his power into his center beam, firing a single round into the creature's large glass eye. The red light behind it blinked out and the machine recoiled as if in genuine pain.

Iron Man repulsed away.

"JARVIS, options?" he called through his network link.

"_It seems, sir, that its outer shell has become impenetrable."_

"Yeah, got that." He said, dodging another strike as the snake shot its head forward and clamped down on his leg. With its prey grabbed, it drove Iron Man into the ground. Its jaws closed tighter, shards of razor teeth piercing their way through his armor plates.

"AH!" he exclaimed, trying to pull the massive jaws apart. It was no use, the jaws continued to crush together until he could feel his own blood mixing with the oil of his suit's spurting wires. He fired a scatter shot at the beast's eye again, but he could only see the side that had already been shot out. He fired the repulsors on his heels, the backfire just enough to get the snake to release. He rocketed away.

Seeing through its one still clear orbit, the machine let out a colossal shriek. It slid forward at and impossible speed. In the confines of the subway platform there was little for Iron Man to do but turn and face the beast head on. The snake collapsed upon him and pulled up, chomping its jaws repeatedly as it felt the presence of the human within the gears of its deadly gullet.

(:):(:)

Natasha heard the crash and wanted urgently to turn around and see what had happened. The HYDRA factions were more organized then she had been prepared for. Clint had described their first attack as working against a mess of unrestrained kids with M-16s. Sure some of them had been organized. The ones taking pot-shots at the Captain were a little too sadistic and the snipers perhaps too accurate but besides that they were disorganized and disappointing foes.

Not this time. This time they were so well systematized it was frightening. It reminded her of the attack on the Helicarrier. Even as she downed man after man, they continued to come back with the same unrestrained effort as they had then. They cared nothing for personal injuries or the possibility of death. Like a zombie hoard they fought against her, bearing down until the sheer mass of them was enough to consume her entirely.

It was good fortune that Captain America chose that moment to flank the group. He came barreling through, shield first, and knocked the men over like bowling pins. He didn't stop until he and Natasha were back-to-back.

"Miss me?" he asked with a grin.

"If you say so." She replied non-committedly

Into the fray they threw themselves, his shield a blur of constant movement behind her contorted body. Natasha utilized her body like a killer fashion model. She manipulated impossible angles to sweep from left to right, flailing high then ducking low and out to use the HYDRA crones' momentum against themselves. She'd lost her own gun but picked up another, dropping three men closest to give her more space to work.

Steve suddenly spun in place, bringing his shield down and over until he and Natasha were both sheltered. Gunshots struck the Vibranium armor and ricocheted wildly. The HYDRA numbers continued to dwindle.

(:):(:)

"That all you got?!" Iron Man shouted. Regardless of having been swallowed into the throat of the snake, he was continuing to fight it from within. Oddly enough he had experience of this sort already from only a few months before when all of Manhattan was under threat from massive flying snake/dragons. He'd ended up down one of their throats as well.

Below him, he could feel the terrible heat from the serpent's innards. Just below him were the unmistakable grinding, slicing cogs. It was a network of destructive mesh no doubt ready to slice him up as readily as they were cutting through the layers of Vibranium-holding rock beds. Iron Man was determined not to be the first human mined in the snake's guts.

He fought with every ounce of his strength, using first his laser to try and edge himself a way out. When that made little more than a dent, he switched to his short missiles, firing one directly down into the belly of the beast. A concussive blast knocked him from the back of the creature's throat to the front, where the metallic palate and lower jaw smashed together to crush him again. The only effect on the snake seemed to be a little indigestion between its devoured plates of Vibranium.

Iron Man was in a precarious position. He'd shoved his one arm deep into a line of wires and conduits, literally the veins and arteries of the massive snake. In an attempt to yank himself free, the hoses were cut. The serpent lurched and rolled, tumbling the man inside it upwards, then downwards further toward the grinding cogs in its stomach. But Iron Man held fast to his position in the back of the serpent's throat. He waited, striking and blasting with his pulsars until the beast lurched again and he was tossed back up into the mouth.

The snake screamed and growled, deafening the ears of the food that it was attempting to consume. It lurched and tossed its powerful head, snapping its jaws in hopes of crushing the human. With each fall of the top jaw, Iron Man jammed his fist upward, deep into the skull in hopes of severing its most critical links to the body. He wedged his feet into the metal grates of the bottom jaw, steadying himself from sliding into the throat a third time. But the jaws snapped shut again, folding him over and nearly flattening his knees into his ankles! The head shook from side to side, and the metal body within too was tossed against either parts of the mouth.

Then—

A light!

At first he thought he must have ripped down the panel covering the covering the snake's controls, but the reality came on the advent of a green head peeking into the new hole in the top of the snake's head.

"Hey big guy!" Tony called out. "Thanks for the haaaaaa—ND**_!_**"

Logic filtered into the genius's mind a few moments longer than it should have. It was logical that after destroying the only thing that kept the creature alive that like any great titan; it should come crashing to the earth with such force as to shake its very foundation. Now, as Iron Man was still trapped within the jaws of the serpent it made perfect sense that he would ride it all the way down.

As the serpent's head raised, and let out a final metallic cry, the joints and gears went completely slack. And suddenly, there was the sensation of falling—

"Ah, crap!" He grabbed desperately at the metal struts supporting the lower jaw. He wrapped his legs around the tubes and arteries of the great snake in hopes of keeping himself from rattling around like a hamster in a wheel. It was in this state Iron Man rode the beast to the ground. He knew the final hit was coming, but there was nothing to be done to prevent it. He closed his eyes, and let his body go slack until at last, he felt the shocking wave of the ground come full force against the head of the snake. His bones rattled in his skin. His body smacked against the top pallet of the beast's mouth and then he fell to the bottom jaw. The mouth spun across the floor. It scraped against the rail ties until it jackknifed open and Iron Man was tossed out. He was dropped into a heap, falling head over heels in a deadly pinwheel until finally spinning to a stop.

"Stark!"

From somewhere in his muddled thoughts came the voice of a friend. Iron Man rolled to his back, his battered limbs screaming with the effort. He felt wet and filthy. The smell of grease and blood mixed with the smoke of frazzled connectors in his helmet as his digital displays flickered back to life. His helmet was pulled off. Tony was lifted to a sitting position and held up against someone's chest.

"Stark! Tony, can you hear me?"

He was moving, or at least his body was moving. That was a strange sensation. Was he drunk? What had happened?

"Open your eyes! It's Steve. Come on, Tony." He shook Tony gently. What insanity! Captain America looked at the wreckage of what was once a giant mechanical monster bred from none other than the mind of Loki. Across the way, the Hulk had torn off down the hall after the last walking members of HYDRA. Natasha had intended to follow, but when it was starkly obvious he didn't need her help, she returned to Steve and Tony.

For a few precarious moments Iron Man said nothing. He was still and unmoving as his mind slowly worked to reconnect the damaged nerve cells that being shaken around a copper box had caused. At length he began to come around. His eyes were already open, looking at Steve's hooded face like he was told to. His mouth opened to say something, but he couldn't discover the correct words in his expanse of a vocabulary.

Steve smiled. "Good morning, sunshine. Are you dead this time?"

Iron Man didn't grin. Instead he lifted a hand and touched it to blue mask. "Could it be my greatest prayers have been answered? Is it you, Captain America? Really you?"

"Of course it's me, that's what I've been telling you!" Steve replied dryly. "Now do me a favor and get over yourself. We still haven't found Clint or Thor yet."

Iron Man raised an eyebrow. "What? Thor what?"

"Oh, get up!" He said, dragging Tony to his feet. Iron Man had no choice but to follow.

Natasha was already beside them. Her head nodded towards them. "He all right?"

"Shaken, but he'll be fine." Steve reported, still holding Tony up by the shoulders. Iron Man was grateful for it, otherwise he would have fallen flat on his face.

"Any sign of Thor or Clint down there?" he asked her.

Natasha shook her head. "Nothing but HYDRA. Not even Kugler showed up to this one. I don't like it. Something's off."

Steve raised an eyebrow, even though it was obscured by the top of his mask. "And giant monster snake miner doesn't set off any red flags either?" Natasha gave him a warning glance and Steve backed down rather than tangle himself into another verbal bought.

"Let's get back to the other annex." He said. "If our guys aren't here, they're probably where I found Clint's arrow."

Steve turned Tony around, still not trusting the knocked-around Iron Man on his own feet. For his part, Tony only made a slight protest. He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the Hulk who was still destroying half the abandoned tunnel.

"Hey, aren't we forgetting someone?"

"Once he gets bored, he'll be along." Steve told him.

* * *

:) continue to review and you'll get the next installment tomorrow morning. so far my finals are going great! and i have FINISHED writing this book! very proud of the ending and for the sudden turn it took, but as a result i'll be changing the rating to teen.

i combined chapter 9 and 10 for this installment. otherwise you would have had 2 chapters of everyone else and not know what happened to Clint for that much longer! but, i had pity on you... hope you appreciate:)

next time: Will Clint defeat Loki at last? Will Fenrir kill him before he has a chance to escape? Will the other Avengers find him in time? Stay tuned!


	11. Chapter 10

**Author note:** Minor house keeping note: I've changed the name of the leader of HYDRA to Anka Kugler. that's all:)

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao**

Chapter 10

Clint had no time to absorb what he had done. There in his hands rested the only power on this earth that he should never have the ability to possess. The Hammer of Thor. Mjolnir. The object that allowed no man to lift it let alone swing it in battle. It held all the fears of Loki and the strength of Asgard in a single swoop. And here it was in his hands as if it always belonged there. As if he was a warrior of Asgard.

Clint thought of nothing. He only acted. His body flowed with the power of Mjolnir coursing through his human muscles, making them more than they were. His arms held greater power, his legs carried him faster, farther. Loki had no defense for what was bearing down on him now. What this would do to his body afterwards, Clint did not know. Would this be his new normal? Would he break apart under the stress of wielding this in a mortal body? One thing he knew. He must defeat Loki. Stop the evil here, on this battlefield, once and for all. He was going to bury this hammer right between his eyes.

Loki fell back, retreating until nothing was at his back but the solid brick that once held Clint's arrow. Where once stood Steve, Clint's only rescue. But now Hawkeye had made his own rescue. He bore against Loki, never stopping in his advance, even as Fenrir came against him with all the power Loki possessed him with.

The fear Clint once held for the shadow wolf has gone. There was nothing now but courage and resolution. He crushed Mjolnir left, then right, swinging backwards and bringing it up into the lower jaw of the wolf. Fenrir whelped at the beating, but came back all the same with his mouth agape, snapping.

Clint turned again, his body flowing like water. He moved just left of the rushing mass of wolf. He span right, bringing the hammer around with his hand on a backward swing. The wolf took the blow hard enough to hurl him into the wall. The head flipped again, nearly closing on Clint's arms had the human not been moving already. He ducked down, waited for the teeth to strike out before he brought the hammer around again and smashed the side of the wolf's chest.

They were in close now, Clint pressing against the massive body as he shoved it harder against the wall and brought the hammer up again, again, and again. From his position just behind the from elbow, every shot was crashing a hole right through Fenrir's ribs to his massive heart.

The wolf snarled. He kicked with his back legs and snaked his head down to grab Hawkeye away. As the hammer pealed back for another wind up, Fenrir wrapped his teeth around it and flung Clint off of him.

Barton rolled, landing on his hands and toes with Mjolnir propping his torso up. His eyes fixed forward on the only prize that still mattered. Loki. Like a child he hid behind his pet, watching with that fear flaring in his eyes. His face was already red and purple, marred in a perfect imprint of Thor's hammer against its jawline. Fenrir howled with utter ferocity. He charged. This time there would be no side stepping him. Clint saw his chance, and he was going to take it now.

Clint roared back. Every feeling he'd been harboring since the day Loki stole his mind releasing with the insensible words. His heart emptied. His soul poured out. With this battle cry on his lips he rushed the attacking Fenrir. But his object was beyond the wolf. With an impossible leap brought only by the power of Mjolnir, Clint pressed off of the tunnel floor. His body flipped up, over the head of Fenrir as the wolf dived down to snap at the air left in Clint's wake.

Barton ran along the length of the Wolf's back, pressing off again when he reached his target. The hammer was over his head, striking down as his body poised directly over the head of Loki.

This would be it. There was no turning back. No phasing away. Nothing would prevent Clint from this triumph even if Fenrir turned around and swallowed him whole afterward. This was Clint's victory. In this moment there was nothing but Loki and him.

Clint saw the reflection of Loki as the hammer dropped. But his eyes deceived him again. For some reason he could not understand, Loki's body suddenly shifted before his very eyes. All at once he was bearing down upon the likeness of himself. Loki had changed his form to Clint Barton.

If it was some trick meant for him, it was not going to work. Barton was no fool, and there was no way he was going to stop. The hammer came down against the mirror image.

A gunshot suddenly split the air.

Someone screamed.

Blue light flooded the halls, illuminating the dark corners coated in Loki's tricks. Walls bathed in blood. Bodies piled together with SHIELD logos on their arms. Two arrows left abandoned in brick. Others littering the floor. A broken bow discarded in a corner, alone. And lastly, a tunnel that had once held the massive wolf, Clint Barton, Thor, and Loki was now empty of everyone.

:(:):(:):

Natasha felt her belly suck in like a crushed can at the first sign of blood. The bodies lined the halls, too numerous to count. Heaps of torsos lay strewn among disemboweled innards splashed in shades of red. Shreds of clothing with SHIELD logos held together random globs of remains, but did little to create human forms out of the mounds of flesh they now contained. The pain of the sight was overwhelming. Friends, colleagues, random faces of men to never know the names of all scattered haphazardly throughout the tunnel.

Steve bore the sight with a paled look of recognition. World War II came slamming back to the forefront of his brain. The death camps, the gas chambers, the liberated prisoners and the dead were all so similar to this. The smell sent him into flashbacks of bombs dropping on his head and gunshots splitting his friends in half as they went over the top of trenches. Halfway through the first tunnel, almost to the point where the arrow was discovered, the smell overwhelmed him. Scattered bowels overflowing with once-held contents and rotting blood was too much for even his iron stomach. He braced against a filthy section of wall and vomited.

Tony hadn't even made it so far. He stood by the shallow overhang that the Hulk wasn't trying to pound through now. Stark's helmet was in his hands. He'd already spasmed enough to bring up his last four meals, but his body didn't seem to know it yet. The Hulk had started out cramming himself into the hall again. When the disgusting sight came over him he stopped and backed away. He had a thing about blood. He didn't like the feel of it on his skin and was never a fan of picking up bloody comrades when the occasion called for it and Clint asked nicely. With the advent of the carnage facing him, all rage subsided. His form already started shrinking back. In no time Banner would be hunched over beside Tony, both of them losing their cookies.

Sheer determination kept Natasha pushing forward. Running helped. She left the cleanup for other men. Still there was an entire building of crushed bodies over their head begging to come down on them. But she was irrepressible. When Clint was involved, she would always be resilient.

Natasha found the place where the tunnel forked and continued to run. The first adjunct was a right hand turn which she didn't need to take to see what she was looking for. It was Clint! God, it was Clint!

"CAPTAIN!" Natasha yelled. Her gun was already drawn. The terror could never be masked in her voice.

At the same moment she walked out, the massive wolf that consumed the entire tunnel with its bulk turned and charged. All she could see was the back of its mouth rushing at her. That, and Clint, prone against the tunnel floor with his arms raised to block the falling hammer of Thor wielded in the hands of Loki.

Natasha did the only thing she could. She doubted bullets would stop the massive wolf, but at least she could slow Loki down. Her shot went true, just as she had trained for. It took no time to make the decision. The wolf still came. There was nothing to stop it but her flesh and blood.

If her world was able to spin once more on its axis and land upside-down, it would have. Captain America rounded the corner, and sized the situation immediately. He was going to step in and handle what she could not. Seconds behind him was Tony. His helmet was back on, repulsors flaring save the one shorting out on his leg. Even the Hulk had overcome not only the small space but the disgusting walkway to be there not half a second behind Tony.

It meant only one thing. That everyone was present when the shot rang out. Everyone saw what had only moments before been Loki with Mjolnir in hand transform before their eyes. Now, as the shot found its way buried home in the side of Loki's head, the man distorted. The roles reversed. Falling limply against the floor, missing his mark with Mjolnir, was none but their own Clint Barton.

Natasha screamed.

Steve was still moving, despite the dazzling array of forms swamping his eyes. He couldn't let himself be distracted. He crashed against the head of the massive wolf, spinning it sideways and back from his team. It was then he noticed another arrow. This time with a grappling line attached that fed right to the overhead conduits.

Thor!

Again the scene shifted. The world spinning and spinning like a child's top. The hall was bathed in a flash of blue so bright that for a time everything was washed away. Steve blinked, rubbing against his eyes to bring the world back into focus but when at last images seemed to piece themselves together, he couldn't believe them.

"Clint!" Natasha said, her voice full of desperation. She ran forward, her hand tracing along the floor where his body laid. It came up slick in blood, hair, bone, other substances she couldn't even describe without the revulsion welling up in her throat. Everything was there. Around her, on her. A head shot. A perfect head shot. Words, Loki's promise, leaked through the hollows of her mind and crushed into the present like a flood.

_I won't barter Barton. Not until I make him kill you. Slowly, intimately, in every way he knows you fear. And then he'll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams I'll split his skull!_

A cry caught in her throat as she held her hands together. Barton's body was gone. He was **just** **gone**. Nothing left but arrows, a shattered bow and what she had blown out of his skull with her perfect shot. Loki was nowhere. His massive pet disappeared. Even Thor's stowed body had faded to nothing.

The Avengers stood ringed in a hall bathed in flickering light and signs of war. Scratches, teeth marks. Wolf hair, blood, bones, arrows, slobber, crushed concrete. It was as if an army was let loose and not a trace remained.

Clint and Thor were gone.

* * *

:) don't hate me because i'm wonderful:)


	12. Chapter 11

**Author note:** oh, the mixed reviewer feelings...oh the confusion...oh the horror...

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 11

Once when he was a child he'd had what the doctor's called a migraine. He'd caught the measles from Louis Delarosa on Third Avenue, seven houses down the block from where he lived. Apparently he'd never had his measles vaccine. It was an oversight common in the hell-hole that birthed him into the world. Louis got to eat ice-cream for five days and skip school right before Christmas break. Clint Barton got encephalitis.

His brain swelled from its normal confines until it was almost pouring out of his ears in twelve hours flat. He remembered screaming, then nothing. He remembered a burning, pounding, aching sledgehammer whacking him over and over and over until there was nothing left but a messy pulp.

There was the faint memory of lying in the back of his father's car. His head was in his hands. It felt like the size of a watermelon. His legs kicked against the door, the window, the back of the driver's seat. He wept, wailed. He felt like his world was crushing inward and exploding from the inside out.

That memory was the only thing cycling through his battered mind. Every second was a waking nightmare, reliving the memories of that moment. He couldn't speak, he could only rock and shake all at once as his mouth uttered those same cries they had that night.

Where was Natasha? Tony, Steve, even Banner? Didn't they realize it was happening again?

_Help me! Please, someone, help me!_

(:):(:)

Fandral sat watching the archer with all the intensity he could muster. His heart was cracking in two. To watch this dear friend of his brother-in-arms struggling to fight for life was pulling him apart. He must not abandon this uncharged post. Thor was in no state to properly instruct him, but in his heart, Fandral knew this is where he belonged.

When he jumped through the portal of the tesseract to collect Thor, it was the last thing he could imagine to walk in on. Loki he had expected. He'd been prepared for the trickster and thief, but Heimdall had been blocked from seeing Loki's accomplice Fenrir. It was nothing to absorb them into the portal of the tesseract. That was his mission. Travel through to earth, cast a wide net, and bring the living souls close by to Asgard. Once returned, a squad was waiting to accept the war criminal Loki back into custody where he belonged.

Where things became muddled was the appearance of Clint of Barton. Fandral had seen him in passing. A close friend of Thor, protecting Thor when the Odinsleep stole his mind away. When Fandral saw the human, laying in his own fresh blood, his split decision was immediate. The other warriors were much less than thrilled. In fact, a few swore an out-and-out rebellion against touching the unworthy human carcass, leaving it to Fandral alone to drag what remained into his own bedchamber. From there he sent a few, equally disgusted, guards to fetch Queen Frigga. Most likely she was distracted with the advent of her son's delivery, but it was worth the attempt to get her attention. An esteemed woman of Asgard also tended to have healing properties. When it came to the queen, she was especially tuned to her healing abilities. It was her alone that allowed the Odinsleep to ravage her husband only rarely. Whether she would have any effect on the bones of a human was to be seen.

Fandral owed it to Thor's protector to at least try. And that he would do.

"Good Galexion! Fandral, you have the fancy of keeping trophies I see. The trail of your kill I followed from the great chamber itself!"

Fandral was rubbing a sore spot forming between the ridges of his eyebrows. He generally did not mind the jests of his friend, Volstagg, but now was simply not the time he wished to endure their abrasions.

At Fandral's obvious lack of response, Volstagg made his own inspection of the form prone in bed of the blond warrior. It was a puny, grimy thing completely red from war. There was a cave to his head that displayed the deformities of injury.

"Is it dead? Why does it adorn your bed chamber? Does it not make more sense to set its carcass upon a spit or to stretch the skin for the tanners?"

"Jest all you wish, my mind is set to assisting this dying soul's remaining moments in any realm." Fandral finely replied with a sigh. He held up his hands, displaying his ill confidence. "I confess when I saw him I knew not what a gentleman to do. I absconded him as well, a tribute to our brother Thor."

"Abscond?" Volstagg questioned, his round belly pushing up as his hands pinched at his sides. "Abscond you say? For Thor? Whatever would he want with a dead man?"

"Do you not recognize him?"

The red-haired giant leaned over, his eyes cruising over the body with only a mild interest. After all, there was nothing better he could be doing elsewhere and Thor was not soon to awaken. Hogun and Sif were likely to be along any moment, and even as his inspection came to a close they did indeed come through the doorway next.

"I confess, I recognize a prulla when it's mashed into a tart, but the mash on this fellow is too complete for my eyes." Volstagg stated.

Fandral's eyes lifted to the others. "Any news of Frigga?"

Sif's head wagged. "She is with Thor."

"Is he well?"

"Recovery assured." Hogan said. The Asgardian had walked over after Volstagg's thorough inspection before him and with curiosity too looked in on the peculiar form occupying Fandral's bed. Frankly the only time he'd ever seen Fandral in the bed at all was with a different woman's company every other third evening or when he recovered from his own battle scars. Having something distinctly reeking of human odor and bleeding to boot was a different sort of finding for the slick, well-kempt gentleman.

"Is this Clint of Barton? Human brother of Thor and the man made of iron?" Hogun asked, clearly astounded.

Fandral nodded. "It is. Wounded in battle defending the life of Thor. Thor, who did not wield Mjolnir himself."

Sif scoffed. "What are you about, Fandral? We all perceived Loki's appearance. He had a thorough rowing by Thor's hand."

Fandral lifted his finger to stop her. "Nearly said, Sif. He had a pounding, to be sure, but it is only because of the wounds of Mjolnir that you assume it Thor's doing. But Frigga herself will attest that Thor has befallen the Odinsleep long before my arrival on their plane. I query, if there was no one around in a room full of a human, Thor, and Loki and Thor is unable to be roused, who delivered the beating to Loki with the weapon Mjolnir?"

The three others looked amongst themselves, absorbing the words without belief in their authenticity. To think a human wielding the power of a hammer forged in a dying star? A gift of Odin Allfather himself?

"For further proof, I assure Heimdall will have seen what I have described." Fandral went on. "This man is not only the protector of our great friend, he wielded Mjolnir. He is a son of Asgard."

Sif waited only a moment longer before disappearing from the doorway again. Her parting words were clear. She was going to drag Frigga away if she must do it by force in front of Odin himself!

(:):(:)

Fandral's legs propped up on the end of his bed. In his hands he held an open book that he slowly thumbed his way through. The room was dark as the sun dropped down over the horizon and night settled over all of Asgard.

The windows were drawn open. The sound of flowing water was flowing somewhere below in the city's alleyways. A light wind blew through drapes as they flowed in and out with the breath of the world. Fandral's chair stood just beyond their reach. He had moved from the bench that was once his seat and instead drew over the armchair from the corner. If he was going to sit without moving for however long it took to assure himself of the archer's recovery, he was going to be comfortable.

Beside him on the small table was a tray of half eaten food. Half a loaf of bread, hardly touched, a clutch of grapes meagerly consumed. The glass of wine was empty, but a glass of water stood beside it with a rag half in and out. Every so many minutes he would take the soaked rag and press it to Clint's lips. As yet, the human responded to nothing he did. Clint's mouth produced quiet, strangled sounds continually. His body never moved.

Frigga came and went over the hours. She'd been stretched between her son in the bedchamber of Odin and the archer. She was unwilling to leave either for long. She was just as drawn to the flickering life of the human as Fandral was and it made his heart at ease to know it. It made him feel that helping the human was perhaps not a ridiculous sentiment.

A movement caught his eye. He dropped the book to his lap and looked better at the form in his bed. Clint resembled a human now. A maidservant of Frigga had come over and sponged away the clots of blood that clung to him. The skull was still crushed, easily felt when Fandral's fingers probed around the hole. As he looked and considered these things in his mind the movement came again. It was the archer's hand, curling over the light coverlet tucked around his body.

"Guard!" Fandral called. He moved forward, dropping to his knees to lay a hand over Clint's. When the guard standing beside the open door walked in, Fandral instructed him to call for Frigga.

The steady moans changed to a chorus of sorrowful cries. Clint's eyelids squeezed against each other. His body went rigid and the sheer agony coursing over him became palpable. Fandral could only cover the man's hand in his own and speak soothingly. Fear kept him from trying to rouse the human from his stupor. Fandral was not a nursemaid, the sickroom fit him ill even if a close friend was bedbound. When Sif came back from a bout against the Mgeraks with an arrow through her chest he visited her bed perhaps twice during her recovery. He was not built for this subjugation, yet there he was.

Random cries began to twist over forming words. They started out as expected. Cries for help, whispering against an unknown antagonist. The name of Loki. Fandral looked desperately at the empty doorway, wishing his queen along faster than he knew possible.

The hand he was holding suddenly held back. It surrounded his wrist, pressing with such pitiful strength. The sealed eyes crested, allowing the first view of the blue sapphires they veiled. They fixed on Fandral with absolute fear.

The words changed now. "Please. Please. Please."

"Ease yourself." Fandral told him. "Frigga comes, you will be well, I declare to you."

"Please." Clint continued, undeterred. "Kill me."

The Asgardian was disturbed by the request. He looked again to the open doorway.

"Kill me. Just kill me. Please, oh God, please." Clint whimpered. His entreaties repeated over and over.

Fandral wasn't sure what to do with him. He kept speaking silently. "Don't say this, archer. You will be well, I give you my word." Clint didn't understand him. He continued to babble in his own world.

The door blocked momentarily with Frigga's form as she approached. Fandral stood to get out of her way, pulling his arm from Clint's grip. Rather than take his seat, she sat on the bed beside the archer and placed her hands gently over his brow.

"Rest, now." She told him. "Fandral, a cool rag, please."

The warrior went away to the washroom, soaking a towel beneath the frigid water of his faucet. After ringing it out in the basin, he returned to hand it over.

"His brow is warm." She said, concern marring her features. "We must keep him still, let his body heal. I am doing what I can, he will improve with time. These human bodies are so very frail."

The Asgardian stood at her back, watching the human struggle in his nightmares. "I almost wonder if it easier to let him pass. Is it a kinder end?"

Frigga did not answer. She held Clint's face in her hands as her healing fingers pressed against the pain in his skull.

(:):(:)

"No . . . Natasha. Tony . . . stop, please!"

Sif knit her brow in worry as she wiped the beads of sweat from Clint's moving face. His lids scrunched tightly together as his hand gripped the bed blankets as if to discover Thor's hammer again. It had been three days of this endless torture since Fandral unearthed him from the rubble of the other realm. Three long, hard days since he fought Loki and was still feeling the emotional tumult of it all. At least, that's what she guessed.

The rest of the warriors, Sif, Hogun, and Volstagg filtered in and away one by one as the days progressed. Only one was always present and that was the silent Fandral.

Not much comfort, Sif thought indifferently. She had grown horribly worried at Clint's state as details began to emerge about that final showdown between the human, Loki, and Fenrir. The presence of the human on Asgard had raised such a quaking among the ranks that Odin himself had come to Faldran's abode.

_His entry was humble, unbefitting the king of Asgard. The soldiers stationed outside the door showed their respect to him as he passed through the open doorway and it was their clanking armor alone that caused Fandral's eyes to rise from his book. Upon perceiving him, the warrior leaped to his feet. It was not unexpected. At some point Allfather was expected to make an appearance. Fandral had expected to be summoned, to testify his reason for putting their world in tumult over the advent of this man. Was it not enough that the kingdom worried over Thor's early Odinsleep?_

_"My king." Fandral said, taking all formalities issued before his leader._

_Odin ignored him. His steps brought him half into the room, standing over the side of Clint's sick bed. The human had grown strangely silent since Frigga had last gone from him. Fandral wasn't sure whether his concern should be mounting or not. For now he had decided to merely observe and wait._

_"A child of Midgard. Dragged here with Loki." Odin said more to himself. His eyes turned to Fandral. "It is your thought he held the power of Mjolnir? A power born only of Thor?"_

_Fandral swallowed, his worry evident. The accusatory tone in the voice of his king made him tremble. What could he say but the opinion that obviously had already reached Odin's ears? So, he could only nod. "Yes, I—"_

_"What leads you to this?" Odin cut him off fiercely. "What proof do you have to bring your mind to such unfeasibility?"_

_Fandral could feel the color drain from his face. He felt worse than a child chastised by a displeased parent. He was a warrior who disappointed his commander, his king. Why Odin had not come before this and ended Fandral's madness was unknown. Perhaps he too was preoccupied with fears over his only true son in the throes of weakness. Fandral's slight was nothing compared to the worry he must hold for Thor._

_"Speak!" Odin demanded, his sharp voice causing a movement out of Clint._

_Fandral's eyes fell away from the king. "I could see the battle, even as the tesseract pulled me toward Midgard. Loki, so it seemed, was wielding Mjolnir against the body you see. Fenrir's teeth went for another human I could not perceive. Thor was tucked safely away, out of danger. I believe Loki could sense my approach, and after he knew of it the world was put right. It was not Loki who handled Mjolnir but the man known as Clint of Barton, archer and warrior of Avenging. As I was casting wide the net of the tesseract, the man you see here was prepared to extinguish the life of Loki. He was stopped by this blow to his head. Forgive my weakness, but I could not leave who I knew to be a friend of Thor."_

_A silence stretched between them. Fandral looked at his boots still, unwilling to make eye contact with the disappointment surely coming from his leader. He felt like a fool. An absolute fool._

_The bed making a noise is what brought him out of his introspection. When his head rose a sight met him that he had not expected. Odin Allfather was sitting beside the Midgardian. He watched Odin look upon the man with all the care Fandral had only seen taken in the case of Thor. The sight was enough to stun him to speech rather than silence._

_"Sire, I . . . What . . .?"_

_"I spoke with Heimdall. He was agreed with your observations. This man, the archer, has somehow held so great an esteem that even Mjolnir has seen fit to grant him power even if temporarily." Odin sat there silently for a few moments more. When his speech and inspection were through, he stood and said a final quick parting to Fandral._

_"Be sure he is looked after." And the king left._

Sif sighed, sitting back in her chair beside Fandral. It was the last report she'd expected to hear from her friend. If anything, it was highly expected Odin would put an end to all this madness and just slit the man's throat. To find him alive, and with Odin's blessing was nearly too great a shock to bear.

Fandral took the cup of water beside him and soaked the corner of a rag. He leaned up and pressed the dampness through the half-open lips of the Midgardian.

_He has become used to this mothering,_ Sif amused her thoughts with.

"You have to wake up now." He whispered into Clint's ear. "Loki cannot win this way. You have many things yet to accomplish."

Sif exhaled noisily again. "What else can be done for him? If he were of Asgard his recovery would be nearly whole by this time."

"You have me, I admit. I have yet to even visit Thor because of this inconvenience. I almost wonder if his opinion should have been fulfilled and I did kill him as requested." Fandral said in distain.

Sif looked up; in some ways surprised he had spoken. It was the first time she'd heard something negative sprout from his lips in three days.

"You could use some time away from the archer, my friend."

Having known Fandral at least in this regard, Sif was sure he would not recant the statement. She was most likely right too. Perhaps getting out could allow him to think up something that would help the man. Nodding, he stood and headed to the door.

"You will call, if he wakes up?"

Sif made a half interested grunt he interpreted as a yes and left with a relative calm. She waited in his corner, listening closely to the sounds of Asgard filtering past the fluttering curtains as the bedside vigil drew out another long day.

(:):(:)

Clint often felt he spent more time asleep then awake. The last few months this had been so true it often made his head dizzy to think about. Ignoring the idea completely, that was something he could do. So he tried to forget that he'd been flat on his back for an amount of time he didn't know. He didn't even try to ask how long his unconsciousness lasted. He refused to speculate as to what had made him a vegetable to begin with. The last time he did, it ended up being a plane crash in Africa. This time he could already tell was more serious than the last.

In many ways he didn't have to ask at all. His head felt like a split watermelon. A dullness invaded his extremities, then faded away. He could literally feel an unnatural pulse behind his eyes and the rush of fluid flowing beneath his scalp. A head injury if he ever knew one. How serious was the least of his worries. He was alive, and that's all that mattered at this point.

He'd woken up the first time in a haze of overwhelming pain, nauseous, and the persistent feeling that he'd been ravaged by encephalitis again. The second time he woke the pain had at last decided to dull. Quite strangely he'd hallucinated Frigga, Thor's mother, standing over him. She'd said something he couldn't understand. Some weirdly dressed guy was beside her. He'd recognized the face from some old SHIELD files but that's where the recall ceased.

Now that he was completely lucid, he expected the familiar welcoming party of the Avengers ringing his bed like a scene from a film. He'd be all smiles and waves, they'd clap him on the shoulder, and off into the black the scene would fade. If not the entire team, at least Natasha would have crawled into his bed and wrapped her arms across him, waiting for his eyes to meet hers.

But none of that happened. In fact, he was very much alone. The room was unfamiliar, which wasn't strange . . . yet. He was almost ashamed to admit how many times that had happened to him. No one was in the room. No sounds outside of people talking. Nothing. He was just simply lying in someone else's bed all by himself.

_Maybe that's a good thing, Barton,_ he told himself. _Last thing you want is to wake up with some girl you don't know and an angry Tasha calling your phone half a dozen times. _ Why he'd be with a girl while simultaneously recovering from some brain injury he didn't know, but logic was not exactly his priority.

He pushed himself up on his palms and surveyed the immediate area. The décor was something otherworldly. It felt like he'd fallen into the 1700s and some nobleman was about to chase Clint out of his castle. He grunted a little, amusing himself over the idea. No doubt Tony was playing a prank on him. Or this was just the billionaire's way of redecorating again after the last time Clint passed out. The archer looked around a little for the doggie thunder-shirt but found it absent.

"Probably wearing it himself." Clint whispered with a smirk.

He untucked his feet from the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The window across the room would give him a good idea of where he was. The back of his hand rubbed across his face, noting the many days' worth of beard that had grown while he was out. So, maybe he was asleep longer then he liked. At least he was up now.

His legs didn't feel as much like jello as he'd anticipated. After a while on his back, he actually felt rather fit. His head wasn't splitting, his body felt relaxed and rested, not crampy and disappointed with removing from the Clint-sized imprint in the mattress.

He reached the window and poked his head out into the night air. A distant moon had crested over a not-to-distant ocean. Stars darted the incoming deep blacks and blues of night. Only a few stray clouds obscured the complexity of the sky. Clint didn't recognize a single star body. It wasn't like he was an astronomical expert or anything, but he'd gotten used to seeing Orion in a certain part of the sky. He briefly considered his location to be in the southern hemisphere, or even on the other side of the planet. But those thoughts were swiftly squashed when his eyes made the natural route downward.

He was glued to that sight, as if to even blink would plunge the world into obscurity. He'd seen things these last few days. He openly admitted to himself that Frigga must have been merely a trick of his imagination. Fighting wolves in a subway tunnel? A beast so large it could swallow him whole? Loki's return? This was all just another nightmare. A bad dream that left him sweating and screaming in the night. None of it was real. Not a single strange sight.

These things he had to repeat to himself as his eyes rested on the city below him. Spires like he'd never before beheld. A city flowing with water that split the buildings, archways of gold and splendor as he could only imagine. Beyond the darkness, stretching out like a beacon of light was a straight pathway to the edge of the universe. It jutted like a dock in an ocean of stars. Its colors flowed with more variations then ROYGBIV could combine. Clint's eyes dashed across the landscape, taking in the smells, sounds, the laughter and music, all without allowing himself to believe what his heart was thudding in his chest. This scene had been described to him for so long. The rainbow bridge. The Bifrost.

**Asgard**.

His knees threatened to give out as the realization hit him.

"I'm going crazy." He told himself breathlessly. "It's the only explanation. I've lost it. Clint, you've finely lost it. Or you're dead. You could be dead _right now_."

He didn't know what to believe but the dizzying sight was enough to drive him away from the window and back into the room. A tray of untouched food rested beside the bed he'd abandoned. The cups, silverware were solid gold, studded in jewels Clint knew were real. Just by their sheen. The plate looked like pixies had formed it from silver and fairy dust. Come to think of it, everything around him was . . . impossible. Tapestries with thread so fine it could be made of hair. Thick furs covered the floors like no animals he had ever seen. The floor itself a marble and black ore flecked in crystal and light that seemed to sparkle on request. The more he took in the more he knew it had to be wrong. Just all wrong. Where in his mind this sprang from was impossible to tell. Beautiful, but just incredible.

Clint braced himself on the chair, carved out of a strange animal's horns, and sat himself down on the thick cushion. His mind was swimming in the splendor. At the same time he attempted to take it all in, he was shutting it all out as well.

"Son of Odin!"

Clint's head half raised to see who made the exclamation. He was somewhat unfazed to see the blond, bearded fellow that had been at Frigga's side during his dream.

The man came forward. He was strong and stalwart in appearance. His metal armor was as beautifully as everything else around the improbable room. Clint made it a point not to invest too much energy in actually looking at him. No doubt he'd be shaken awake soon by Stark or Cap, or any number of his teammates back home.

Fandral approached, crouching before the archer. "When did she abandon you? Here I believed at least Sif could . . ." he cut himself off. "Never mind my sentiments. How does your head fair, Clint of Barton? Do require anything of which I can give?"

Barton looked at him through half closed eyes. His head rested in his hands, fingers creased over his face into his hair line. What could be seen between the digits was a man at the end of his wits. For all sanity sake, he wished someone on the other side of this madness would wake him up sooner rather than later.

"Can you speak, my brother?"

Clint continued to stare at him, willing the image to dissolve, or fade away, or just blow up in his face. But when the image persisted like a nightmare he couldn't wake from, he decided to at least play ball. Without moving his hands, he just shrugged. "Yeah, I'm all right."

Fandral was so overly delighted it was almost sad to watch. This sentiment he restrained, with a good deal of difficulty. "Thank the queen, she will be most enthralled with this improvement."

"Um hum." Clint said, disinterested. Why invest any effort into making conversation with the apparition when any time now Banner would have him flat on his back discussing his latest plant-pain-relief cocktail?

_Oh yes, there is only minor side-effects, like believing you're waking up on another planet. Besides that it just grand for coma patients that constantly throw their mortal bodies into danger._

Clint could literally hear Banner's words echoing in his brain as if at any moment they were about to be spoken. He kept his eyes on the doorway, expecting Tony to walk through with a cake-eater grin.

"Archer? I say, can you understand me, my brother?"

"Hu, wha?" Clint said, returning his attention to the Thor-like fellow.

"I mention that this must indeed be a great shock for you, but do not be dismayed. It is my understanding that Thor should soon be well and the explanations may be given by him in a more complete way. Do you require anything? Is there some supplement of human consumption of which I should make a point to provide? Do you require Playboy?"

Clint allowed his fingers to descend from his face and steeple beneath his chin. Well, the guy definitely sounded as dim-witted as Thor could sometimes be. If this was some kind of rouse, or his mind projecting some crazy dream, it was pretty convincing.

"Playboy?" Clint couldn't refrain from asking.

"Yes, I am told human males have a terrible time existing without this necessity, I must confess I don't have any idea what it is but Thor has assured me in the past that men find it impossible to live without. At least that is what he was instructed of by the Iron—"

"Iron Man." Clint shook his head. "Tony. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Is he here?"

Fandral looked confused.

"Tony, Iron Man, is he here?"

"Why, of course not."

Clint sighed to himself. "Yeah, stupid me, why would he be."

"Indeed." Fandral insisted. "It was against many rules that I even brought you to this realm, to think of bringing a second borders of madness. It was good fortune for you that Allfather took a kind eye and allowed you your life and that Frigga has not been so consumed with her child's health not to impart her powers to heal that hole in your head. It was come along famously, though."

Clint waved a few fingers, trying to get the fast-talker to tone his voice down enough for him to understand three words in ten. "Whoa, slow down shiny. The _what_ in my _where_?"

"Your head." Fandral replied. "I was worried it may never heal, but it has even closed the gap where the piece of metal tore through your skull."

Clint sprung out of his chair, probing through his hair line now to fully understand what was being said to him. He felt the divot almost at once. There was a mirror in the corner, just as ornate and sparkling as every other thing in the room, and he used it to get a better look at himself.

From the beard that overtook his normally smooth face he'd guessed at least five days, maybe more, had passed since his last conscious morning. From the ring of healing tissue meshed over the left side of his head, only three inches above his ear, he ascertained that he had been shot in the skull.

"Oh my God." He exclaimed.

"Yes, that is what I thought. For a moment you looked like Loki and—"

Clint turned on him, his jaw still dropped. "I got shot in the head!"

Fandral nodded. "Yes, yes I know and—"

"SHOT!" Clint shouted. "IN THE HEAD. Me. I was shot in the head."

Fandral pinched the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth. "Perhaps I should get the queen. I am hardly suited for the sick bed and those recovering traumatic injuries were never a point of strength for me."

Clint felt his knees go weak. He grabbed the top of the mirror as he started to sink. His stomach did a back flip. Reality soaked in like a thick tar. It wasn't a dream.

Fandral rushed forward and held the man up at the armpits. "Now, now, see here. Don't go all limp on me. Just a moment ago you were in fine spirits. Let's not let small details clutter our judgment shall we?"

"Oh my God, I'm on Asgard." Clint whispered as Fandral used his waistband to haul him to his feet again.

"Yes, I know." Fandral said sedately.

"It's really Asgard."

They made their way back to the bed where Fandral deposited his ward once more.

"I know." Fandral repeated.

"It's out there."

"And in here." He grabbed the coverlet and draped it over Clint's chest. The archer wrapped his knuckles around the fabric, as if to hold onto what reality he'd been slammed with.

"I want to see it." He whispered, his voice stunned and distant.

"You will." Fandral assured. "Rest now, and when you have recovered this little shock I shall be your devoted guide."

"I want to see all of it."

:(:):(:)

Clint of Barton. On Asgard that was his only point of reference to the human that he was. When people spoke his name, it was like a distinction. You are not of Asgard. You do not hail this as home. You are of something else, far away and grand all at once. He was almost a celebrity. Both hated and loved at the same time. Fandral had introduced him to Lady Sif and the other warriors three. Frigga, who was as flesh and bone as any breathing creature, had come to him many times. He hardly knew what they spoke of. Most of the time she held his hand as he looked into her eyes and saw the lights of the universe dancing there. He'd climbed through every tower, visited every spire. Leaped from the Flaming Falls of Arabachy and watched the moon crest over the flat ocean horizon. But nothing called him home like the bridge of light.

Clint's lower legs hooked over the top of the Bifrost, allowing his upper body to hang into the abyss below like a trapeze artist waiting to catch a fellow flyer. The deep blackness of space stretched beneath him, studded in stars and planets that for brief flashing moments were as close as his nose touching his face. His eyes could settle on one place. His body would relax. Suddenly that world would come rushing up to him as if pulled by a string. He'd be staring at the entire circling planet, then the tops of trees, then the blades of grass being blown in the wind as strange creatures he had no names for danced across fields bathed in purple and red light. Just as quickly it would all fall back into place and he'd be again staring at the black abyss of space.

"This is intoxicating." He confessed to the only other soul around.

Heimdall, the watcher over Asgard and all the Nine Realms, stood with his sword planted into its groove in the Bifrost. Light pulsed beneath him as the rainbow of colors danced across the day. He offered only a grunt of a reply. He'd made it obvious how nervous he felt about the human lolling his head into the nothingness beyond. One slip and surely Heimdall would be to blame for losing Fandral's prized pet. Let alone what may be said of Thor's temper when the son of Odin emerged from the Odinsleep.

"So you stay out here all day? Every day? That's all you do?" Clint went on, giddy as a five year-old.

Another sigh emerged from the massive Asgardian. "As it has been stated. I am the sentry of Asgard and the Nine Realms. It is my sworn oath to keep watch over the peace of our world and those beyond."

"Right up my alley." Clint said. "I don't think I could ever leave a gig like this. I mean, it's like exactly what I've always wanted. I stand back, observe from afar. Tangle when I need to. I bet that sword doesn't just hold you up when you get tired."

Heimdall made a sour look he knew the human could not see. "I have fought in wars. This is so. And I am the first defense against the invasion of Asgard."

Clint pulled himself up. Now he was sitting on the bitter edge, a position Heimdall found he was even more disturbed by then before.

"Have many tried to invade this place? Wouldn't be my first idea knowing the heck of a time we have keeping Thor at bay. Couldn't imagine a whole race of him suiting up for a war."

Heimdall did his best to simultaneously keep an eye on Clint and ignore the rising worry that the man may do something idiotically suicidal for which he could be blamed. "Wars have both come and gone. His Highness and I have been at each other's back on more than a single bout, Clint Barton."

Now Clint stood. "Hey, you didn't say—"

"I watch over many worlds. Allowing me to be familiar with many customs. And I have observed your conversations with the son of Odin enough to know common sense."

Clint smiled, which was infectious enough to crack the tough exterior on Heimdall's face and make him grin as well.

"You know, I think you and me could be good friends." The archer said. He moved to the front of the watcher, staring out to where Heimdall's eyes drifted. He was over a head shorter than the Asgardian at his back. In compassion, he felt like the actual ant Loki was constantly comparing the human race to. "Not a bad gig, there, Heimdall." He said again, or at least he would have if the shards of the Bifrost, left from when Thor's hammer smashed against it in his first battle against Loki, had not collapsed from beneath him.

Heimdall simultaneously dropped his sword, shot off balance and lunged forward to grab Clint's back. His massive hand nearly circled the man's chest as he plucked him from the air and deposited him back on the solid ground of the bridge. With a breath a little more on edge then he would ever care to admit, Heimdall retrieved his sword from the ground, backed up his post a few meters, and stood at attention once more.

"Wow, that would have sucked." Clint said, one hand on his knee, the other over his chest as his felt his heart attempting to escape his ribcage.

"Indeed." Heimdall replied.

"You were freaking out!"

Again emotion filtered across the unflappable giant. "I say not!"

Clint laughed. "Oh, sure, you swear to that big boy, but you were shaking in your boots. You can admit it, we're alone." He followed Heimdall's lead and backed away from the edge. At least for the next four minutes until curiosity drew him over once more. He could get used to this life. Every day, just standing on the bridge of light spying on the universe around him. The peace and calm that overcame him was chilling. Every day he dwelt longer was another step he took from remembering those he left behind on Midgard.

At the errant thought, Clint smirked.

"Have you conjured another amusing insult?" Heimdall queried, genuine curiosity embedded in the sleek voice.

"No, nothing like that." Barton replied. He was standing beside the man again. His eyes focused on planets, zoomed in, saw cities, zoomed in, saw people sleeping in their beds. Men working in their homes. Creatures swimming in strange oceans. Worlds turning on their axis without any knowledge they were observed.

"I just realize how much my thoughts keep changing on me. Realms. Asgard. Midgard. I always make fun of Thor for all that crap he keeps me up all night with but now I understand why. It really is the most beautiful thing in the universe."

"That it is."

"There, see, words from an authority on the subject. You must have seen the whole universe by now. You would know."

Heimdall smirked. Sure the human irked him to no end, but there was a strange comradeship he had not felt in a long while that existed only in the presence of Clint Barton. He'd observed him often enough in his constant vigil over Thor and Midgard. He'd felt an affinity then when he realized the bond they shared as watchers. Now in their many conversations since the human escaped Fandral's careful attentions they had more time to come to an understanding of one another.

"Brothers." Heimdall said.

Clint looked at him, somewhat surprised Heimdall offered to say anything. Let alone that. "Huh?"

"It's what we say when we have discovered spirit allied with one's own. It means a bond built on strength beyond oneself. It keeps two people close despite insurmountable opposition and saved my own life more than once in the wars with the Frost Giants and Grivenrogh."

"Brothers." Clint said distrustfully. "Word's always left a bitter taste in my mouth. Me and my real brother had a sort of falling out years back."

"Does Thor not grieve over the atrocities of his own kin?" Heimdall asked.

"Adopted." Clint pointed out, but the point had struck a chord. He folded his arms over his chest. "So, is this some kind of proposal, Heimdall? You asking me on a date?"

The sentry chuckled. "I merely mention that should a time ever arise when you require my sword, it will be yours."

"Or if I just need you to keep me from falling off the Bifrost, right?"

Heimdall grinned, and so did Clint.

Barton reached up and clapped the Asgardian on the back. "Then we have an accord. Brothers, Clint Barton and Heimdall the Sentry of Asgard. Wait till Tony gets a load of this one. I think he may just pee his pants."

Beneath them the Bifrost pulsed with a sudden, rigorous life. The colors jumped and danced. Particles of rainbow dusted drifted into the air and floated around them like shimmering lights. Clint grabbed a piece of Heimdall's armor to keep himself steady should the bridge suddenly decide to fall out from beneath them.

"Hold your fear, its only riders coming from the city." Heimdall told him.

"Who said I was afraid?" Clint accused, but held on tighter. He craned his neck to see around Heimdall's shoulder to the cityscape highlighted in the sun's rays at their back. Five riders were thundering down the bridge of light. Their horses, if they could be called that on Asgard, were running at a pace Clint could only consider suicidal. Here he was in danger of just falling off the bridge out of clumsiness. He couldn't imagine galloping along it.

Abruptly, he decided he really wanted to do just that.

Heimdall's body turned toward the newcomers, his sharp eyes taking focus on the lead rider almost as soon as Clint began to make him out. "The Son of Odin rides in front. His recovery has come at last."

"THOR!" Clint exclaimed. He broke off from his hold on Heimdall and rushed towards the galloping horses. Sure enough leading the charge was Thor, his smile wide enough to outshine the sun behind him. Flanking either side were the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. If Clint thought he had already seen all that Asgard had to offer, he was in for an entirely different experience as the personal guest and friend of Thor, the heir of all.

No, not just a friend. A brother.

Thor hardly waited for his horse to pull up before he was already off and lumbering toward Clint. Without reservation they embraced, the mighty Thor crushing the very wind out of Clint but the other wouldn't complain over it. It lifted his spirit so much to see Thor awake, alive, that it didn't matter if the Asgardian broke every bone in his body.

"My friend!" Thor roared in unabashed ecstasy. "Brother in arms! How glorious to see you in this place, my home! Have you been treated well? Is all to your liking?" Thor pulled away to arm's length to listen to Clint's reply. It was a few minutes in coming. First Clint had to recover his oxygen intake to be of any use to anyone.

Behind him Heimdall took half a pace forward in concern, but given the present company swiftly dashed the idea. He scolded himself privately and stood at attention again.

"Well, something's don't change." Clint said when at last he could. "And yes, I've been treated very well. So don't worry about it. Fandral's been one heck of a nurse."

At that statement Fandral could only blush as Volstagg laughed loud enough to wake children from their beds in all the nine realms. Thor too joined in, draped an arm over Clint's shoulder and moved him towards the horses.

"My friend, what Fandral has done for me I may never be able to repay. He is the best among friends. But I must hear the story from you now as you have refused to share it with all others. What happened in the darkened tunnels?"

Clint began to say, but Thor held up his hand.

"Not here, first I must treat you to the feast I have prepared in the name of my father's good graces and my mother's generosity. There, you will sit at the place designated for only the highest honor of Asgard." Thor swung himself into the saddle lithely. He offered a hand to Clint who climbed up behind him. "You will be taking my seat." Thor explained, and away they rode down the Bifrost.

Clint's head swung back, watching Heimdall fade away into the blackness of space and stars. The man turned again, planting his sword in the heart of the Bifrost and fixing his eyes in the universe. Clint turned away, allowing his eyes to fix instead on the walls of Asgard passing beneath them and the overflowing city rivers that spilled into the cloud belt below it. They passed the arch that led into the city's heart, leading directly to the towering cliffs with the palace perched atop. Clint wasn't sure he could ever get used to the sight of that beautiful scene, with the sun cresting behind the throne room and the whole world being bathed in radiance.

"I can't even explain it." Clint whispered to himself, stunned by it all.

Thor cocked his head back. "Have I not told you of the world here?"

"Sure you did. I just couldn't ever picture it looking like this."

"Then he doesn't do a very good job as an orator!" Volstagg said, riding beside him. He bellowed again, his deep belly-laughs as infectious as one of Clint's smirks. How the horse ever withstood the man's sheer bulk was a mystery to Clint, but then everything in this world was so difficult to understand he'd given up days ago.

"So say you!" Thor replied, throwing out an open palm that wacked Volstagg with enough force to throw Captain America over a building. Volstagg merely kept riding without affect. "I think I remember your own sweet lullabies to a fair maiden once that had as much description as a one-armed child's stick-drawing!"

Clint's mouth made an oh-you-just-got-played-Asgard-style expression and he turned away from Volstagg's look of disgust. Riding on their left were Sif and Hogan. Sif was enjoying every trifle word passing between the two. Partly because she admitted to being the fair maiden of whom Volstagg attempted to swoon. Hogan was a more unflappable then his comrades. In all he tended to be silent and reserved, speaking about as much as Heimdall on a talkative day. Given his nature Clint was unsurprised when, through the verbal lashing going on to his left, Hogun did little more than smile and urge his horse into a race against Fandral.

(:):(:)

Clint had been wearing virtually the same clothing that came with him from earth for the past four conscious days he'd spent on Asgard. Fear of what he may receive in place of his current wardrobe was one reason he'd never requested a spare change of clothes, and plain old shyness was a close second. He had all reason to believe he'd been wearing his uniform during the ten days of unconsciousness he'd suffered through as well. That totaled to a grand fourteen days without change. Two solid Asgardian weeks. At this point, despite constant swims in the Tehren waters or vigorous scrubbing in the shower, he still felt as if his shirt may walk off of him in protest. Sensibility rescued him at last, as Hogun pointed out that even a human should not been seen at a feast for Odin wearing nothing of fancy.

Thor, of course, agreed and Clint was brought to Hogun's quarters to find something suitable. After all, everyone on Asgard seemed to have been built out of human/giant hybrids. Thor was nearly twice Clint's Girth, Fandral was much too tall to offer any reasonable clothing choices and picking anything from Volstagg's wardrobe was worse than Thor's. It was also to Clint's benefit that Hogun was a quiet, reserved fellow. Not prone to the flamboyant/gentlemanly dress of Fandral's lace cuffs or Thor's heavy rich fabrics, Hogun was much more muted, simplistic, and overall acceptable as a choice.

In the end Clint was wearing something he would probably pick out of a 23rd century American shopping center. Black, grey, strangely cut, and just polished enough to not insult anyone at a fancy party. Hogun himself wore something similar, if not a little more muted with duller copper and brass vs. Clint's silver and steel trimmings. When the Warriors Three, Lady Sif, and Thor were again reunited, all were pleased at Hogun's sensible fashion choice and off to the banquet hall they went.

Barton had been to few fancy dinner parties. Once with Natasha on his arm. Of course they were there to assassinate the guest of honor so it was hardly appropriate to consider the evening a successful shindig. Another was a SHIELD aniversery dinner. He'd worn a suit and tie, Coulson had a nice shirt and some slacks, and Fury wore pretty much what he always wore. There was a solid hour of eating catered food, ten minutes of Coulson saying a few supportive words, then twenty minutes of operatives heading out to their cars and away from the venue as fast as they could to escape the uncomfortable tension. It was the first and last anniversary dinner.

Even though Clint had been groomed on how to act appropriately, working a room, and aligning himself not far from the person with the most power in the place, working a dinner party on Asgard came with a few challenges he did not anticipate.

The banquet doors opened, showing what could only have been half the population of Asgard all shoved into one space. All manners of dress, elegance, trinkets, and over-the-top maidens were in full array as his eyes swept the room. Ten tables longer then a New York subway train split the room into rows. A single perpendicular table topped all of the ten others and was furthest away from where the warriors entered.

While one-half of the Asgard population was guests, Clint imagined the other half must have been recruited as servers and cooks. The amount of food piled all over the place was infinite. Guards he'd come familiar with seeing lined every pillar, their armor sparkling with the splendor of a new polish.

"Oh, and I expected a better turnout, apologies, Thor." Fandral said, his voice showing a marked dejection.

"To be expected." Thor replied. "It was short notice."

Clint shook his head in shock. He followed limply behind the others as they made their way to the head table. "Not a big turnout?" he said to himself, taking in the room again.

"Oh, you should see it at the Annual Harvest!" Volstagg exclaimed, which was the only volume his voice had. "Why, this place would not be half as empty as it is today! You should really stay to see it, and then you would have a good show!"

As hard as it was making his way through the onlookers now, Clint couldn't imagine the room being squeezed with a single person more. It took them longer then he could count to get to the end of the ten tables parallel tables. Thor would stop here and there along the way, introducing Clint to people the human could not possibly remember for more than three seconds before another face and name took their place. Women batted their lashes; girls blushed and took his hand when he wasn't watching and dropped it when he looked. Celebrity status definitely was the closest word he had to his current elevation of world rank.

When they did reach the honored table, Clint realized they were standing in front of Frigga. She gave him a kind smile.

"Why, archer, how does the feast suit you?" she asked.

Thor stood to his left, shaking hands with another friend Clint already forgot the name of. Fandral, Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif had already begun walking away in order to circle the table and get to their seats.

He offered her a shrug. "I have to admit, I've never seen anything like it." He told her.

"Well, I do hope things will be to your taste." She replied, fixing a napkin across her lap and sitting back in her chair. "We've never entertained a guest like yourself here before. Heimdall has made a few recommendations on your behalf."

"Heimdall?" Clint asked. Naturally his eyes wandered, looking for his friend in the crowed.

"Oh, he won't be found here. He seldom leaves his post. In fact since taking it I believe he never has."

Thor's friend departed, allowing Thor's attention to return to Clint and his mother again. He went through the motions of a proper introduction again. "Clint of Barton, my mother Frigga, of who I am told you are acquainted."

Clint nodded. "A few times now." He said.

Thor then extended a hand toward the empty chair beside his mother. "Is father not attending?" he asked.

"I believe he will be along. He had a sudden urgent matter to attend. He was quite decided on it." She explained. Her face was puzzled.

"What could be urgent at this time?" Thor asked. "Or what more important than this?"

"I try to dissuade him, but his mind was decided. He may be along, Thor, do not take it to heart." She patted the chair to her right. "Now come and sit, let's enjoy the night you have arranged."

Thor smiled at her and nodded. He headed off after the other warriors, allowing Clint to follow at his side. When they were beyond earshot of his mother, he opened up to Clint quietly about his reservations.

"It saddens me he is not here." Thor admitted, low enough the other guests could not perceive his words. Clint was impressed with his ability to control the volume of his voice in this place. Somehow just being on Midgard changed all of that for him. "It was my hope to at last introduce you, formally. I confess I have only seen my father twice since my awaking the Odinsleep. It is not like him to take this reclusive step with me."

"Why do you think he's staying away?" Clint asked.

"I hardly know. I was concerned, at first mind you, that he was angered over my staying so long in your realm. And that he was disturbed greatly at Fandral bringing you here to Asgard. I thought him disapproving, and attesting it by withholding his presence."

"But you don't think that now?"

Thor shook his head no. They walked in silence, each contemplating the strange turn events had taken. Clint had much more to consider then his friend had. After all, he had yet to wake from a coma and find himself on a different planet, in a different galaxy. He had been concerned over Thor, and it eased his mind to see his friend so healthy now. Like his old self again.

"I do not know what it is that worries my father. But there is something else that troubles me."

Clint and he had just circled the (very) far end of the table and were returning the opposite way towards Thor's mother and the Warriors Three.

"What is that?" he asked.

"How Loki escaped at all. How he got to your realm, and how it went unnoticed until now. It worries me greatly. I fear he has an ally here." Thor's voice was even lower, his head bent to Clint's ear.

"Like somebody helped him? Who would do it?"

Clint's question went unanswered. Thor had nothing to offer by way of reply and they had reached their place at the table. The Asgardian, rightful heir to the throne, normally took the seat at the right hand of his father. He relinquished it now, in front of the thousands before him, to the man known only as Clint of Barton. Instead he moved to the opposite side of his mother and Clint took the chair offered to him at the right hand of power.

A silence dragged on throughout the hall for a few, uncomfortable minutes. Clint felt his mouth go dry under the stares of everyone. He suddenly felt like getting up and running from the room. Or at least demanding to change chairs, or hid under the table until everyone got bored and looked away.

Directly to his left was Frigga. She looked to him as well. Waited a few moments, then leaned over the empty seat of her husband to whisper mercifully to him. "Now, archer, you are sitting in place of all of our authority. They are waiting for you to eat something, so they can too."

At this simple realization, Clint almost shot out of his chair. He felt like an absolute idiot. This was a near medieval-type city he was dealing with. Decorum was everything from the way people spoke, to their dress, and manners. He grabbed the first edible thing in front of him and stuffed it into his mouth. Whatever-it-was was as tough as a piece of wood and tasted like a four-day-old filthy sock. But, it did the trick. The eyes turned from him, music started up, and the hall became a cacophony of speech, laughter, and singing.

His appetite virtually gone, he swallowed the thing in his mouth and collapsed against the back of his chair. Fancy dinner parties were never his thing. After this, he decided to avoid any others for as long as he lived.

To his right, the chair was empty for a few minutes until Fandral appeared from a gaggle of beautiful ladies and plopped down beside him. He had a tray full of what could have been stewed meat, or strange looking vegetables in a gravy slaw. It did not smell in the least appetizing and did nothing to inspire Clint to eat anything beyond what he'd already swallowed.

"Ah, my friend, I see the Allfather has yet to grace you with his presence." Fandral said, scooping up a spoonful of stew and shoveling it to his mouth. "Has Thor introduced you to Lady Milkenhal? She's a fancy one, that. Been trying to settle my friend for years now."

"If he did, I don't remember." Clint replied honestly, sinking a little further down into the cushions. He propped an elbow up on the arm of the chair and rubbed his eyebrow with his hands.

Fandral took the gesture as a sign of discontent. He patted Clint's shoulder lightly. "Oh, do not be dejected by the poor showing. It is difficult to rally many guests on so short a notice as five hours. All the ladies must get their new dresses in order and the gentleman must wait to see what ladies may appear, and the warriors must polish their scars, it's all quite extensive."

Clint sat up, pushing his hand away. "Oh, no, no, it's not that. God, I've never seen a bigger party then this. I don't think they have bigger parties then this on Mid—I mean Earth." He shrugged, "It's just, so much. Everything it's so much to look at. Makes my head spin."

Fandral smiled in a sad way. "I wish I could understand you. I hope there was a way to lessen it. But there is, I suppose, a reason Midgardians are not brought to our realm. You do not think your brain will implode, do you?"

Clint smirked. "No, I do not."

"Then fair thee well!" Fandral reached forward and grabbed something that may have been a fruit off of the bountiful spread before them. He placed it in Clint's hands. "Chew on that. It will be easy on your stomach. If you are offered wine, I would refuse it. Tonight it is made strong enough to knock even Volstagg on his rear. Hogun already has lost his senses at only half a glass!"

Clint directed his attention to where Fandral indicated and sure enough Hogun was being held in place by three lovely Asgardian women. Even drunk, Hogun was a formidable sight. No doubt he'd be taking one, if not all, of them home with him.

"And here they usually collapse over me." Fandral said in dejection. "Devil's lucky night I suppose."

Clint nodded. He wondered to himself if one of those women, as young and beautiful as Frigga surely was in her youth, brought him a glass would he be able to resist drinking from it? He took a bite of the fruit. Perhaps filling up his stomach with something solid would help prevent him from an irreparable mistake to come. Thoughts of home were long behind him.

:(:):(:):

He thrashed. His arms came down in tetanic masses, stretched, flexed, recoiled, and then jutted out in each direction as they fought an invisible foe. A cry tore from his usually taught lips, it was soft, desperate. His hands pulled at the mattress covers until they tore apart. Even the ripping of the fabric and the spewing of feather was not enough to rouse him from the overwhelming nightmare that seized his heart. Sweat soaked him through in minutes. His legs kicked out, fighting the baseboard until it threatened to break him.

Pepper was crying. She wasn't sure why, but she couldn't stop the tears. Her body leaned over her lover; her hand circled the blue light embedded in his chest. It had become routine for them. After the Manhattan attack, Tony hardly slept through the night like a man should. He was often roused. The feeling of suffocation tore the sleep from him. The icy chill of space freezing his soul until his mind was convinced he was back there, through the portal, trapped in a universe he would never see again. Just as the nightmares had died down, as he began to sleep more sound and life in the strange Avenger family hit a plateau of brotherhood: tragedy struck.

It had taken Pepper over a month to get the entire story straight. It had come from Bruce Banner, and she may have been holding a gun on him at the time. Tony, Steve, Natasha, and Bruce had all witnessed the same scene. The building collapsed on top of them. The bodies of friends littered the hall like a horror film. The wolf, as large as the Hulk, lunged at them. Loki wielded Thor's hammer. Clint was poised to die. Natasha took the shot that training and love forced from her.

The scene changed. Loki had been playing them. Every one, all along. He'd mimicked radio communication. Killed the teams in the tunnels. United HYDRA under a new banner. And he fooled Natasha into thinking she was shooting Loki when she was really only shooting Clint Barton. The body hit the ground, leaving little doubt as to her accuracy. He was dead. There was no other way around it. Hawkeye, their friend, her partner, was dead. It was the Tesseract, Banner thought. Someone from Asgard, most likely after Loki, appeared in the tunnel. In only moments everyone was gone. The wolf, Loki, Clint's body, and most likely Thor.

That was over two months ago now. And still, Tony felt the effects of that horrid day. He suffered every night through the tortures of those tunnels. He fought massive snakes, was chomped in half by wolves. Ran towards a light that just went further and further into the distance. Held Clint's shattered skull in his hands. Took the bullet himself. He screamed, he cried, he fought, as every night sleep deprived him of everything that made him sane.

Tony's eyes snapped open. He didn't lunge up, or stand. He just laid there in bed, looking at the ceiling as if his dream drifted before his eyes. His hands were shaking with exertion.

"Tony?" Pepper whispered, her hand moving to his face.

He caught her fingers in his, but said nothing. Just held her hand against his face as the night stretched on, as sleeplessly as those before it.

(:):(:)

Banner rubbed his eyes from beneath his glasses, struggling to focus on the high-powered microscope on the lab table. It was late. Too late for him to be making any real progress. He hardly knew what he was even working on. Heaving a sigh he pushed the microscope away and slid off his stool. His back was killing him. Stretching cracked half a dozen vertebrae, a good start, but a better night in bed and a late morning rise was really what the doctor ordered.

He grabbed his sweatshirt off the back of the door and passed by Tony's work station on his way to the elevator. On top of the desk, taking up nearly three-quarters of the free space was the wreckage of Clint's bow and the three arrows found intact at the scene underground. A container in the corner held a thousand little shards of crushed steel and arrow tips. Beside that was an empty quiver.

When the SHIELD team found it, they weren't really sure what to do. It didn't feel right throwing tech out to the scrap heap. Many had been friends with Barton, even if they had a falling out over his possession by Loki. He was still a respected agent. Tony wasn't even in the room at the time, but somehow he'd heard about the abandoned gear and threw a fit until it was given to him. He hadn't done much more then place them where they were now and stare at them every once in a while. Banner knew Tony had about just as much of idea of what to do with them as SHIELD did.

Bruce got into the private elevator and headed up. He could veritably count the floors as they passed, reached twenty five in his mind, then stepped out half a second after the doors began to open. He yawned, fishing threw his pockets for any stray articles he'd be chucking on his night stand before he deposited himself into a bed. The form sitting in the hallway brought him up short.

From the outline and for a brief overwhelmed second, he was convinced the person was Thor. The feeling was so strong he rushed forward, dropping his coat, his keys, whatever was in his hands. Within a few steps of the person reality struck. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and mentally chided himself about spending too many long nights in the lab.

"Geez, Steve, you gave me one Hell-of-a fright." Bruce said. He turned back the way he came, picking up his discarded articles. "I thought something had happened to you." He lied.

Steve didn't respond at first. He was sitting on the floor. His back was against the hallway wall. His hands were draped over his knees and his eyes looked forward into an empty room. Banner didn't have to look to see whose room it was.

"It's not your fault, you know." Bruce said.

Steve still didn't speak.

Bruce crouched down, hitting somewhat of an eye level with the Captain. Steve had taken the blow hard, as hard as any of them. Losing a teammate was almost worse for him. He'd lost men in the field. World War II was no cake walk, for any one, let alone Captain Freaking America. He'd lead more missions into deadly territory than any other man of that time. He lost men like any commander did. Bruce was sure every name of those kids that died came screaming back when someone knew was ripped out of his grasp.

He'd liked Clint. Frankly, the two were getting on so well now it was as if they'd always been a team. Now just when everything was going so well, Clint had been pulled away. Bruce didn't need a psychology degree to know Steve was hurting over it.

"Tasha, you knew she couldn't stay out of it. It wasn't you, ok? Don't stay here too long." Bruce said, standing. "He wouldn't want it."

Bruce moved past him, crossing in front of the open doorway that lead to Clint's room. The mattress was unmade. A crumbled bit of newspaper wrapping was on the floor, untouched by even the maid. It was as if Clint had only just left it that morning and would be coming back soon.

Bruce wasn't sure if it was helping, or hurting, leaving the room that way. He wasn't about to be the one to garner Tony and Steve's wrath by touching it though. Regardless of his own feelings of loss over the death of a teammate, Banner was no more affected then when the Hulk overtook him. The giant had felt a kinship with the archer like no other. Seeing him die was such a shock that the big guy just faded away, leaving Banner in the tunnel to take in the mess left over. He'd changed only a few times since that day. Once to help the cleanup crews fish rebar and tons of concrete building from the streets of New York, another for no reason but to escape the Tower for a while. Each was just as painful as the one before. The Hulk grieved as acutely as any man could.

Bruce opened his room door, casting one last look up the hall to Steve. The Captain hadn't moved. With a final sigh, Bruce closed his door and headed to his bed. His thoughts went briefly to Natasha. He knew she was out there, some where. SHIELD had kept tabs on her for a little while but when that girl didn't want to be found she could disappear like a rat in New York. They all knew what she was after. Occasionally Banner wondered if he should have insisted on going with her. There was no changing the past.

(:):(:)

Rot. Worm-eaten wood. Tunnels of half-flooded filth. Rats. Echoes of chains and bars. Heavy doors, slammed against arched entryways. The smell of festering wounds, bile, and half-digested stomach contents. Vomited blood. Unclaimed body parts. The constant hum of flies and tick-tick-tick of maggots getting their fill of flesh. Dogs growled and fought down one of the passageways. Cats howled in the night somewhere above her head. Farther up, out of this underground dungeon it was already raining.

Natasha Romanov was in a place she knew rather well. Prison was no stranger to her. Whether working a jail from the inside on assignment, or getting in the wrong place with the wrong government, she had more than seen her fair share of the inside of a cell. This little piece of Hell now attempting to draw the worst of her fears forward was nothing compared to the Gldani Prison in the little country-to-be of Georgia or the prison massacre she somehow survived at the Tadmor Prison in Syria. Comparatively, this was a cake walk.

Her feet were chained to a loop of steel protruding from the floor. Her hands were in cuffs, tight enough to be uncomfortable. Her shoes were gone. One of the HYDRA activists had taken a liking to them. Her weapons were spread over half the thirty floors up. The last time she saw daylight could have been three, maybe four weeks.

Routine was everything to these HYDRA wannabes. Regular guard shifts. Standard questions. They wanted the vibranium back. That was a hot topic in itself. Natasha wouldn't give up the location. Even if she did know it, there wasn't much of a chance they'd be getting anything from her. They wanted the current location of SHIELD. That was like asking for Tony Stark's bra size (which she always imagined may have been a size 44 C, if he had a choice in the matter). Their guess was as good as hers.

When she took this mission it was clearly understood that SHIELD was _not_ backing her. The door was still open, she hadn't burned that many bridges, but Fury was adamant that he did not want to see another operative go down in flames. She didn't try to convince him out of it, didn't even look at Steve, Tony, or even Banner when she walked out. Deep down they all knew the Black Widow had made her choice. Without Clint keeping her there, little else was to tempt her to stay. She wanted to round up the rest of HYDRA. SHIELD saw them as a non-threat. Maybe she agreed, but that didn't matter. It was their fault Clint was dead. Not hers. Not Loki's.

Even thinking about that day made her jaw tighten. Her heart threatened to cave in on itself. To break from her chest and just give up. In the past few weeks she had plenty of time to wonder just what the Hell she was doing back in Budapest at all. It was as life and come full circle. The city drew out every memory of that meeting where Clint made a different call. Where he could have given Coulson the kill order, but he changed his mind. The day he fell in love with her but didn't really know what to call it.

Natasha didn't come back to this circle misery to relive old memories. It was easy enough to do that back home, when Clint was still alive and she could hold his hand in hers and feel every scar she'd given him. She was here for something else. She'd demanded it for weeks. Day and night, the only words they could draw past those lips were the name of her target.

"Anka Kugler."

It was all she wanted. They could kill her now and never get another word beside those. Anka Kugler. Anka Kugler. Anka Kugler. The name beat against her skull as ceaselessly as the memory of that gun blast. The scream. Her scream. Natasha refused to let the waking nightmare steal another moment of her mind away.

At least this time, she had a distraction to pull her out of her own mind. The cell door opened. She imagined it may have been twelve hours since the last HYDRA goon had come by to make her bleed. The fresh cut leaking over her eye had stopped pulsing. Her kidney was still worse for wear, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

The door closed almost as soon as it opened. Turning just enough to look over her shoulder, Natasha was surprised to see only one person enter. And not just anyone. It was the only person in this city she even cared to see.

There was a single light in the corner, a standing lamp with no shade that cast a hazy yellow glow through the room. Regardless of it, Natasha was sure of herself. She only had a single photo, pulled from the rubble of the Defense building in Manhattan to go by.

"Natasha Romanov." Kugler said. She wore an outfit not unlike Natasha's. Tight and leather seemed to be the outfit of choice for femme fetals for hire. Her hair was blond, short, and cut at an angle that accented her sharp face. She made no move to hide the two side arms in easy reach of her hands should Romanov try anything untoward.

"White Witch." Romanov replied easily. Weeks of sensory deprivation, torture, and pain floated to nothing with the sight in front of her now. She had a feeling, ever since the photo emerged, that she had seen Anka Kugler before. Now, there was no denying it.

The fellow assassin circled Romanov's chair, checking for stability no doubt. When it seemed she was satisfied, she crossed the room, grabbed a chair of her own, and dropped into it backwards before her prisoner. She reached her hand forward and played it along Natasha's eye.

"Nice touch." She said. "I vish they vould have done a better job. Perhaps den I vould not be needed for dis trivial vork." The light touch turned on a dime to a closed-fist punch.

Natasha's head snapped to the side. The cut began to bleed again.

"Cut the German accent crap." Natasha spat. "You were never any good at it. Kugler? Really? Where'd you dig that up, a phone book."

The woman flipped her hand in an uninterested gesture. When she spoke again, the accent was full American. "You know, have to pay the rent. Us working girls don't always get a government backer. Miss having you in the field, Widow."

"Not in the field, Witch."

The White Witch shrugged. "Well, whatever this is its fun for one of us." Her boot lashed out next. Romanov let out an involuntary groan as her kidney took the pounding again. The ghost of a smile brightened the captors face.

"I miss this. The two of us, tearing it up. What ever happened to those good old times. Back when you were on the hit list of forty countries and that archer had you in his sights? Fitting isn't it? Budapest again?" She leaned forward on the chair's back, the heels of her boots digging trenches into the tops of Natasha's feet. "You know," she whispered seductively, "I can always go find some old hypos. For old time's sake."

Natasha cringed, trying to pull herself away, twisting her body against the pain. "You're just as sick as ever." She said breathlessly. "Master Assassin to Loki's doll, what happened, you lose your motivation?"

The White Witch leaned back again, allowing her chair legs to smack the floor with a dull thud. Her hand went for her gun, undoing the strap that held it into her side holster. "Oh, you know. Things just sort of happened that way. He was looking for a killer, I was looking for a payday. Nothing like four million in bills stolen from a bank in Amsterdam to make a girl feel welcome."

Natasha's eyes flicked up to her. _Amsterdam_. It couldn't mean . . .

The White Witch laughed a high maniacal pitch that even during their runs together, in the days when Widow was about as trustworthy as Loki, made her spine crawl. "You don't know!" She exclaimed. "Oh, this is rich. Absolutely rich. Who do you think got your little boyfriend on that plane to begin with? Who shot him and Stark out of the sky and left them for dead? Didn't it ever cross that head of yours?"

"Oh my God." Natasha gasped. "It was HYDRA, we knew it was but—"

"I asked for the detail myself." The White Witch admitted. She spun her hand, and therefore her gun in a slow arc as she spoke. Her tone was full of pride, especially in her ability to go unnoticed for so long. "We had fun you and me before he showed up. I wanted to put him in his place. Fancy that Loki agreed."

Natasha's world crashed again. She felt like she was standing on the deck of the titanic, waiting to drown as the music played. Her heart beat tremulously in her chest as she threatened to just fold right up and die there. Across from her the Witch continued on.

"When I found out that Stark and him made it out, and then I just had to try a little harder. And boy, your little cuties got so moves. The way he took me on that dance floor was a night I will never forget."

Natasha's horror continued to mount. The flash of a scene passed before her eyes. Her, standing at the bar of a nightclub in New York, watching Clint and some girl dancing their hearts out. Some song was playing, he was singing, they were drinking, and Romanov was furious. Then a flash forward, Clint and her standing in a hallway. A private moment, one of few they ever got. She held the arrow tip necklace he wore in her hand. A small engraved phrase was on the back.

_Thank you- Emory._

"_You shoot me down, but I won't fall. I am Titanium . . ."_ The White Witch sang the line, the words gnarled as they sprouted from her mouth. "Nope, won't forget that any time soon. Should have sealed the deal with him, if you know what I mean."

Without warning, she angled the gun down, squeezed the trigger, and buried a bullet into Natasha's knee. The Agent jumped, screamed, pulled desperately against her chains to get away without success.

"But, you know, duty calls. We had that tunnel rigged to blow. While I distracted the Hawk, the team drove off with the others. All we had left to do was wait for your boy to drag the Hulk and you along to find the rest. But you didn't come, and that was a little bit of a disappointment, Natasha, I'm not going to lie." Her leg kicked out again, leaving Natasha writhing in a well of unrelenting agony.

"We had Clint on a tracker, the sentimental idiot. Wasn't hard to keep tabs on him. When the tunnel didn't blow or flood as planned, then we just had to keep on thinking. It was Loki's idea to play the shadow games. I think you and I can both agree I like the more forward approach." Now she lashed out with the gun, pistol whipping the already flowing crevice in Natasha's skull. The beating continued. There was no one to stop her. No one to come to her aid. No knight in shining armor that may burst in and save her. Not this time. This time Natasha was going to die in this cell.

* * *

ok, so i'm kinda hurrying the last few chapters along here to make them longer, hope you enjoy!

Next time: will Natasha survive? will Clint remember home in time to save her? will this story ever end? will Tony ever sleep again? stay tuned:)


	13. Chapter 12

**Author note:** YAY! happy reviewers once more. I am satisfied.:) More than satisfied, I am in utter ecstasy!

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 12

_"You shoot me down, but I won't fall, I AM TITANIUM! BULLETPROOF. **DRUNK** AND **BULLETPROOF** BABY!"_ Clint sang rather eloquently to Thor's back as his body was folded over the Asgardian's shoulder. He'd started out singing _"Don't Stop Believing"_ by **Journey**, then quickly changed to his favorite song after remembering the lyrics. For a human, he had lasted a relatively long time without being tempted to taste the only strong drink in the universe that could knock Volstagg off his feet. Then a pretty little Asgardian maiden came up, batted her lashes, and Clint was a goner. He took two sips, decided it was better tasting then his glass of water, and didn't stop. Half a glass later, the party turned from the uncomfortable shindig he'd been prepared for to the best night of his life. He danced, sang, ate something that may have been part of an animal's stomach, and partied like only a true warrior of Asgard could.

Now it was nearing dawn of the following morning. Clint was too drunk to walk and Thor was just sober enough to carry him. Fandral had already wandered off to his own room with an entourage of two or four girls. Thor's double vision prevented him from an accurate count. Volstagg couldn't be moved from where he'd collapsed beneath a table. Hogun wandered off his own way with a broad smile on his lips. He wasn't one prone to drunkenness, but when he did indulge often times the only evidence of it was the increased gaiety he displayed without reserve.

Sif was a lady and a warrior. This juxtaposition allowed her to win out in the competition that literally drank Volstagg under the table while at the same time she never lost control of her faculties. She didn't stay long at the event, per her normal. But no doubt she would be awake early to see the havoc wreaked from the night before and to document the after effects of her friends for blackmail. A lady and a warrior indeed.

Thor smiled at his floating thoughts, shifted Clint's still-singing form off his shoulder. They had arrived at the place Thor often called his room, but seldom referred to as home. Now, the Stark Tower was home. Earth, though so far from him, was home. He had yet to summon the courage to even see Jane Foster, the woman who he designed to love for all eternity. Somehow the timing was always wrong. He was a coward for it and he knew that very well. Perhaps someday he may inquire from the others what should be done. But not today. Today, he must rest and recover still.

Clint he laid in the large bed. The human had stopped singing so loudly and now resigned to mumbled tunes and smiles. Thor pulled a small blanket over him and stumbled away to the chaise. He told himself he would merely shut his eyes for a moment, enough to recover his wits. He had quite enough sleep the last few days to make him bitter to the idea for the next century. He did not like the Odinsleep, or the horrid dreamy abyss of which it banished him to. How Loki ever managed to manipulate it out of him was a mystery he did not divine to dwell on. He only prayed it did not happen again.

He sat himself back against the arm of the chaise and stretched his legs forward. Regardless of being released from the Odinsleep he felt weak, depressed. Whenever the sleep faded from his father he always saw the opposite. A renewed strength and vigor would enter the king like none before and sustain his strength until the next Odinsleep. But this seemed to sap Thor of everything he was.

Thor looked over Clint's resting form. To think of the man from earth wielding Mjolnir in battle! Thor had to chuckle to himself. That must have been some sight to see. What Loki must have thought! What that little deceiver must have done when he saw it! Thor stretched out more, resting his head on his arm now as his eyes slid closed. Images of Clint's bold declarations floated beneath his eyelids. The man had only drunk his first sip of wine when the story sprouted from his lips. Not to be deterred by the lack of attention thrown his way, Clint climbed onto the banquet table and commanded the attention of the entire room.

Frigga's eyebrows raised, but being thoroughly amused at his antics did what everyone else in the room did. She sat back and listened. Thor was all pride, encouraging his brother-in-arms on.

Like a pompous bird, Clint strutted up and down the length of the banquet tables and proceeded to reenact the entire battle between Loki, Fenrir, and the human named Clint of Barton. A serving fork served in place of Mjolnir. Volstagg was determined to play the role of Loki until the faster Hogun beat him to it. The Asgardian dinner party became an instant dinner theater as all of Asgard laid witness to the battle of Midgard.

Mjolnir rested the whole while beside Thor's chair. It was never far from him, even on Asgard. And as the story went on, Thor found himself tugging absently at the leather strap. He occasionally allowed himself to wonder whether Mjolnir was a sentient being. Did it know when he was in trouble on earth? When he nearly died as a mortal and it came flying to his aid to restore his strength? Did it know if Clint fell that Thor would be left unprotected in the hands of his evil brother? These were things Thor pondered then and now as his eyes were closed and his body relaxed back. Sleep, as unwilling as it was, reached out and drew him in.

He dreamed. He dreamed of Clint fighting the great wolf Fenrir and Loki watching in horror. He dreamed of Clint sailing through the air with Mjolnir as his strength and weapon. He dreamed of Jane Foster and of going home as sleep claimed him until late day.

:(:):(:):

"Clint! Clint of Barton, you must wake! He's summoned you!"

Clint felt the hand on his shoulder, but rolled his muscles to dislodge it. He turned over, grabbing hold of something that felt like a pillow and drew it to his chest in a strangle hold. His head was pounding. Why anyone wanted to get him up this early after a night of drinking he couldn't understand. He groaned. "Ugh, go away."

The pillow fought against him until he was holding nothing but air. That move made his eyes draw open and look disappointingly around. "Who took it?"

Thor stood by the end of the bed, rubbing his face to get some consciousness back. It looked like he was ready to dive right back into a bed if he'd been given the opportunity. To Clint's right was Fandral. He looked panicked.

Clint pushed himself up on his palms and knees, working to get himself into a relatively sitting position. "Wha—appened?" he slurred.

"Get up, quickly! He's not to be left waiting." Fandral went on, helping Clint out of bed by dragging him up by his armpits. "Dust yourself off, you haven't time to change. Thor?"

A mumbled noun came from the bleary Asgardian at the end of the bed.

"Pull yourself together now! I know he's your father, but to try to spruce up or something."

Clint caught his feet on the edge of the bed and stumbled to stand. When he was properly upright, Fandral rushed away to the closet. He grabbed Thor's red cape and worked swiftly to fix it to his shoulders.

"Look lively now, you too! The guards have warned me he's not in a trifling mood. You can't be late and already I've spent too much time getting you out of your beds."

Clint fished around by the floorlooking for his boots. "Odin?" he asked as he looked. "He wants to see us? Me?"

Fandral finished with Thor and went to Clint again. "That's right. He's not asking either, he's demanding. What are you looking for?"

Barton stood up and looked around the room, and then he realized that he had somehow fallen asleep with his boots still on his feet. "Uh," he stuttered, trying to contemplate of a way to get himself to think at all. "Nevermind. Found them. Let's just go."

Fandral didn't want to disagree with that idea. He grabbed Thor's elbow and directed the Asgardian heir out with Clint making slow progress behind him. Fandral was quick to point out they had five, perhaps ten if it was stretched, minutes to get their sober minds about them. Odin was notorious for sniffing out weakness. If he suspected either of them weren't paying complete and utter attention to him, this little summoning may be worse than initially expected. It was not the king's typical behavior to request an audience for good news.

"Does it have something to do with my brother?" Thor asked. He scuffed his hands along his garments in an attempt to straighten them out. It wasn't often he dealt with slept-in clothing.

"I don't know anything more than the fact that Wagren came rushing into my room a few minutes ago shouting about Allfather returning, he wanted you immediately. I had to run after you."

"Why didn't Wagren just come to me? It was no mystery where I was." Thor finished fussing with himself. The last tendrils of sleep shirking off at last. Clint was falling behind the much longer strides of the men before him. Thor waited for his steps to catch up to them before continuing to walk.

"For that ask Wagren." Fandral said. He turned his attention to Clint as well. He flattened the collar around the man's neck and swept away a few feathers that clung to his back. Clint's hands were working thorough his hair and the scrub of beard on his face. He felt like a hobo. His hair was longer than he liked, his face was a mess of old scars and more hair, even his clothes didn't escape the smell of last night's liquor. This was some way to go see the king of Asgard.

They assembled outside of the throne room. The door had been sealed shut, two guards outside instructed them to wait for admittance. Fandral was not allowed inside at all.

"What's this?" Fandral asked, shocked. "Since when am I not able to be admitted? When did that happen?"

"What is going on?" Thor demanded of the guards.

Neither said a word more.

"Frost Giants." Fandral spat the insult at them.

Clint was still tucking in his shirt and smoothing his clothes. His alarm was escalating by the minute. He'd felt fine with the idea of Fandral going in with them. After all, when Odin first came to visit Clint it was Fandral alone that stuck up for him and kept the human from being banned back to earth where most likely he would have died from his injuries. Knowing that Fandral would not be there to defend him escalated his level of alarm to near catastrophic proportions. Obviously it was equally disturbing to the warrior. He cursed at the guards in words and languages Clint couldn't understand, or even pronounce.

"Stay your words," Thor said when he felt Fandral had made his peace. "Stay here, and we will be out forthwith. Odin would never do something to Clint of Barton when he already gave the approval to care for him. Besides I will be there and as his son he would not harm my friend."

"Do you really believe that?" Fandral asked.

Thor's lack of reply was all Clint needed to allow his tumult to escalate all over again. The doors cracked open. Thor and Clint were both rushed through before they promptly shut again. Fandral was left outside to pace in his worry.

Clint Barton had seen the reception chamber twice already, so he at least knew what to expect when the doors opened. A massive gold throne centered the room at the end of a long walk on gold and marble floors. The first time he came, rings of guards were being instructed on their proper placement along columns and their duties should trouble ever arise in the throne room. The second time he'd been shown around, a new set of recruits were standing at attention, being examined by the head of the guard, introduced to Clint as Wagren Fai. At both instances the place had been packed full of people milling about, trying their armor, clanking swords, and all the general ruckus he'd come to expect on training days as a soldier himself. Thor had given him a close up tour of the intricacies of the throne itself, which was a magnificent feat of craftsmanship. It was without a single solder line, scrolled in ancient languages, and the sheer richness of the gold gave the metal a feeling of silk on his fingers.

Now, the room was completely empty save for themselves and two others. Frigga stood to the immediate left of the throne steps. On the seat of the throne itself sat Odin Allfather.

The lack of guards, courtiers, or Asgardian warriors was enough to even set Thor on edge. Halfway into the room his steps slowed, allowing Clint to walk directly at his side.

"What's going on?" Clint whispered to him.

"Do not fear." Thor replied. "Stay beside me."

Clint looked between them, noting for the first time that Mjolnir was in his friend's hand. He wasn't sure at first why this made any difference in his mind. Thor and Mjolnir were practically to halves of the same body. One was not far from the other unless some cataclysmic separation had occurred. Just the sight alone, how Thor was holding the hammer now, caused another swell in apprehension as they continued to walk. He felt like a man heading to his execution. If there was truly nothing to be feared, why stand behind Thor at all?

"Father!" Thor said as loudly and boisterous as usual. His eyes darted leisurely to his mother.

She displayed a private questioning look in return. It was obvious she was no more aware of the reason for this sudden gathering than anyone else.

The two reached the edge of the stairs that led up to the throne and stopped. Out of respect, both Thor and Clint made low bows.

"You were missed at dinner, father." Thor said, straightening. "There was entertainment, dancing, and food for all."

There was a pause at the end of Thor's words. It was not that Odin was looking for dialogue of his own. Something else was in his eyes that sent a sliver of ice along Clint's spine.

"So I've been informed." Odin spoke at last. There was nothing to be drawn from his tone as it was devoid of any emotion.

"I've hardly seen you at all. Is everything well, father? Has something happened?" Thor continued to probe cautiously.

Odin was quiet again for a time. His gaze was not directed toward Thor at all, but since entering the room it had only one focus and that was of Clint Barton. The archer knew it as keenly as the two others with him. Thor did his best to deflect the gaze but no speech was helping his cause.

"So you've recovered." Odin said, ignoring his son and speaking to Barton.

Clint was standing now, slightly behind Thor's shoulder. It wasn't his decision. After fighting off Loki, braving a gunshot to his head, and falling off the Bifrost he wasn't sure much else in this world could harm him. But Thor was afraid for him and that made him cautious.

"Yes sir, I have." Clint said, trying to keep his tone neutral. "Thanks to your people here and her highness."

Odin's face remained completely unreadable. "My people." He repeated. "My people who against all commands of this kingdom put the lives of those I rule in mortal jeopardy by bringing a creature from another world to our sanctuary here? An act that only occurred once before when the walls of Asgard were attacked from within by Frost Giants?"

Clint's throat threatened to swell closed. Thor was almost standing completely in front of him now.

"But, Fandral didn't—" the son attempted to say.

Odin dashed to his feet. A physical blast of energy threatened to knock Clint off his feet had Thor's arm not been there to grab. Before the heir of Asgard could say another word he was wrenched by some invisible force away. He was on his feet still, but trapped in place. As he spoke, no words came. Mute and paralyzed, he watched.

"You presume yourself a warrior of Asgard?" Odin's voiced boomed with more power than Thor and the Hulk combined. Clint could hardly stand, alone, facing a force he could never possibly defend himself against.

"I assume nothing." Clint shot back.

"You claim the power of Mjolnir?" Odin continued, he stepped down from his throne. The physical presence of his coming forward was like a crushing blow from an invisible force field. Clint could feel his body fighting against him to crumbled back. If he lost his footing now, he'd be a helpless whelp lying on the floor completely defenseless.

"I claimed nothing!"

"A **human**? A **weakling**? A mere mortal bearing the power rightfully set for the son of the King? Did you think yourself worthy of it?"

"Odin, no!" Frigga declared, but made no move toward him. Her eyes were full of terror.

Clint could see how this was going to end. Maybe the only reason Odin wanted him healed was to kill Clint himself. Maybe all of this show of courtesy was making a mockery out of Clint and any other human who thought they could belong in this impossible place. Or perhaps it was Odin's way of setting an example to Thor. Showing his son what a sub-par race he'd aligned himself with. Whatever the reason, Clint only had one sure fact. That Odin had the power to kill him, but that didn't mean Clint was going to make it any easier for him then he did for Loki.

"I took it!" Clint declared brashly. He fought against whatever force Odin was using to try and beat him down. He bore what felt like the pressure of the Hulk's hands squeezing his body into itself. "You want the truth, and I haven't made a move to hide it. When Loki came after me I took Mjolnir and slammed it in his skull. I wanted it to break him in half. If Fandral hadn't come I would have done what Asgard should have done itself and destroyed Loki without any help."

Odin's whole body tensed. The wrath was as palpable as a lightning storm. "You would _dare_ murder the son of the king?"

Without reservation Clint answered him. "You bring Loki through those doors and I _swear_ to you he wouldn't leave this room alive. Even if you have to drag me out in a body bag."

Frigga paled. Thor, though motionless, displayed on his face every emotion of his mother.

Odin was within feet of Clint now. He towered over the human like an immovable energy. His words seethed on his tongue. "Do you speak truth, human? Beware! The answer you give may be your last."

Clint was being challenged. And he was not the kind of man to shy from that. Even if it was coming from Odin Allfather himself. If Thor could swoon, he would have as he watched Clint not only stand up to Odin, but move forward. He climbed the short stairs that separated their bodies. He puffed himself up, looked Odin dead in the eye and gave the answer that would make him admired or crush his very body.

"I would have ripped him apart with my bare hands if I had the chance." Clint hissed through clenched teeth. "And it's a testament to Asgard idiocy that he ever got out again in the first place!"

Odin moved, Clint was ready for it. The king's hand raised, a staff materialized against his palm and made to smash down against Clint's healed skull. Frigga screamed. In Odin's distraction, Thor was released. He yelled for Clint to run even as he began to swing his hammer against his very own father. Clint lunged back, rolled beyond the reach of Odin's staff and out of reflex his hands made to pull back his bowstring. But he didn't have his bow. He probably would never have it again.

Something else came to his hands instead. Something unfamiliar and yet . . . right. His left hand was pressed against the riser of a bow and the fingers of his right hand plucked a string. There was no arrow.

As if frozen in time, Odin stopped his attack. Thor too, just a few short steps behind him, paused. Clint was on one knee with the bowstring pulled back and if he'd had an arrow Odin would have been in its sights. The Archer was breathing deeply, rapidly, like a frightened rabbit waiting to fight or flee if given the order. Odin allowed his hands to drop. The staff faded into nothing. Inexplicably, he smiled.

"It's all right, archer. You may stand." He said. His manner had become soft and welcoming. Similar to his wife's. "I will not harm you. I swear to it."

Regardless that he had no arrow for which to shoot, Clint felt secure just holding that bowstring back. So he sat there, kneeling with the bow tight against him as he tried to analyze what the Hell had just happened. He was happy to see that Thor was equally flabbergasted. It made him feel a little less like he had just pretended that the king of Asgard was three steps from killing him.

Not to miss an opportunity, Thor went to Clint's side and remained between his friend and Odin , desperate not to be tossed away again should Odin's manner change. His mind was at war with itself. When his father swore to something, it was as if the law was written in stone. He would never go against it, but why this now? His father as much as he kept his word was in equal parts never one to jest. This attack and subsequent retreat by him made absolutely no sense in the world.

"Father, I don't understand –"

"There's nothing to understand, son." Odin cut him off, his manner continued to be perfectly genial. "You can relax, both of you. There is no malice to be expected from me."

Thor turned to Clint, Clint looked up at Thor. Slowly the archer rose to his feet, his hand eased forward on the strange bowstring until the limbs relaxed and he could hold the weapon at his side. With little other option before them, they waited to hear the explanation.

"It took me a long time to reconcile the fact that any one man could attack Loki with any hope of success." Odin said. "To hold Mjolnir, he had to be more than a man. When Fandral's first report came, I was determined not to believe it. Then when Fandral continued to stand up for what he knew was true even in the company of his friends who doubted him I made it a point to discover the truth of the matter myself. It was Heimdall who settled all. He had been watching Thor, as instructed, and witnessed the entire event. Fandral confirmed this, again, to me, and my mind was decided. If the human should recover and prove himself a worthy man, then he could join the ranks of any warrior of Asgard with my blessing."

Thor started forward, as if the news blew him over. His head snapped over to Clint. It was no secret how affected he'd been by the statement, but the opposite could be said for the human. He supposed it meant something of grand importance was about to happen here between the four beings. What scale it could be measured on was unknown.

Odin stretched his hand out and motioned for Clint to come forward. He did, holding the bow out as Odin's gestures instructed.

The king accepted the weapon from him, and turned the piece over in his hands with admiration. "The great sculptor Arbathini of Alfheim wanted to spend the better part of the year fashioning this bow. He gave me a fair deal of grief on the subject of his finishing only within a few days. But that is all I had given him. It took fifty brave elves to travel into the cavern of the earth giants of Thlacikeen to retrieve the metal that made it. Arbathini himself had to take coals from the volcano of Vlbnor to make his fires hot enough to form the bow. The string was spun from the mane Sleipner, the eight-legged horse and my own personal mount. It will never break." With pride at the craftsmanship, Odin extended the bow pack to Clint Barton. "The scrolls or ancient words I have carved with my own hand. A worthy gift to the man who I owe the life of my son, the heir of Asgard. Our world owes you much, archer. Let this be taken in recompense for some of that debt and the instrument of trade you lost at the hands of Loki."

Clint, feeling at last the magnitude of what he was being given was left at a lack of words. He accepted the bow back, turning it in his hands to look at all the small intricacies pointed out to him by Odin. It was beautiful. Better than the throne of silk gold, or the Bifrost made of rainbow light, even the world that sat atop a cathedra of clouds. This he treasured and always would.

"I don't know what to say, your highness—"

"It is for you alone." Odin told him. "Just as Thor's hammer has been instructed to empower only my son or one worthy enough to wield it, so this bow has been crafted for you."

Frigga came to them, standing beside the seat of the throne with her hand on Odin's shoulder. "It is a wonderful gift, dear." She said, "I only wish you had informed me of something before scaring the life out of me."

Odin smiled briefly. "A test." He admitted. "I must make sure that the wielder of this bow is actually worthy of it. That he has ideals and sticks to his resolve even against unstoppable forces. When you felt danger, it came to you. That is how it will always be now."

"I, I've never had anything like this." Clint told him honestly. "I don't, it's too much. I can't possibly just—"

"Take it." Odin told him, firmly but with care. "You are dismissed."

Thor nearly found himself knocking Clint sideways to get the man unplanted from his spot. Baffled, elated, and still in a state of unrelenting shock, they left the throne room to find Fandral if only to inform him Clint had survived a battle against Odin himself.

:(:):(:):

When they exited the throne room, Clint was still reeling from what had happened so quickly in such a short period of time. He thought he was walking into his own execution. Then the king of an alien race far superior to his own tried to kill him, or it seemed that way to him. Then he was given an irreplaceable gift. The only thing that could distract him from dwelling perhaps forever on these happenings was the sight that waited for him just as he exited the throne room.

"Heimdall!" he exclaimed. Out of everyone in Asgard, he never thought the watcher would be there.

Heimdall took his arm from Thor and began to head towards the outer hall. "There is no time to waste!" he said swiftly.

Thor and Fandral hurried after them.

"What's happened?" Clint asked.

"It's Midgard." Heimdall explained. "The one known as the Widow is in danger."

Clint had his arm back, he needed no help keeping up now after Natasha's name was uttered. Like remembering a dream through the cloud of daylight, his thoughts came crashing around him. How could he have forgotten about her? Tony? Steve? Banner? Everyone seemed so far away, difficult to see even in his mind. Heimdall and he began to run, leaving the outer gates of the courtyard in minutes. Two horses were already tied there. Heimdall took one, tossing the other set of reigns to Clint.

"You can ride?"

"Try and keep up." Clint replied, a feral character not hidden in his voice. He spun his horse, dug into his sides and urged the animal on. Heimdall wasn't a moment behind him as they launched out of the courtyard and into the city.

"Thor?" Fandral asked, watching the two forms become smaller in the distance.

"Get to the vault." Thor told him. "We need to get the tesseract. I believe we have been gone from Earth much too long."

:(:):(:):

If Clint thought anything was dangerous about how Thor rode up to him that day on the Bifrost, it didn't hold a candle to what he did now. His horse's muscles flowed like water as its hooves dug into the crystal pathway. A single slip, a false move, would prove Clint's utter demise. But that didn't matter. He needed to see home. He wanted to know what could have possibly gone wrong. How could he have been so blind this whole time? Did being in this world of Thor's make him forget everything of the Earth that was his home?

He mentally chastised himself for pushing away everyone that truly mattered in his life. After the battle with Loki, who's to say they were not in a fight of their own? How did he know any of them were even safe? The harder his mind beat against him, the harder he pushed his horse. He needed to get to the end of the Bifrost, see what Heimdall could clearly see.

If it was a race at all, neither of them won. Heimdall arrived at the same time as Clint, both dismounting hurriedly before rushing to the end of the Bifrost. Heimdall pointed the direction out, and Clint saw. First came the overview of the planet, then a zoom in to what he wanted most. Stark Tower loomed over the city of Manhattan. Going in, past its walls he saw Steve Rogers, leaning against the wall outside of Clint's bedroom. He looked depressed, beaten down. Then past him, into the next room was Bruce Banner. He was gripping his nightstand in two green tinged hands. The wood cracked and splintered beneath that unstoppable grip until it was left almost as dismantled as the dresser beside it. Then Tony Stark, tossing and turning in his bed sheets in the throes of a night terror. Pepper lay beside him, tears streamed down her face.

"What happened?" Clint demanded of Heimdall. "What happened?! Where's Natasha? Is she even there? Is she dead?"

"She's not there." Heimdall told him. "Further out, past the great ocean here." He directed Clint's eyes with his hands. The world faded back again until they were looking over the Atlantic Ocean. Heimdall's hands flowed through the air, spinning the planet before them until it stopped in the city he'd seen. Their eyes focused in, searching, until Clint saw what had Heimdall so concerned for him.

Natasha looked beaten. Blood marred most of the features he could see, and that was a vast deal. Most of her clothes had been stripped away. Her knee had an obvious gunshot wound. One eye was nearly unrecognizable through the swelling and cakes of dried blood. He'd seen her at her lowest. When they came back from Bavaria after a mission gone south and her lung was collapsed, she'd refused to be lifted. When he'd fallen from his post and shattered his ankle in the Congo during a protection detail, she'd gotten shot in the back stooping to pick him up. That didn't mean she couldn't still carry half of his weight all the way back to base. Seeing her like that, strung up like some sick doll made his intestines scream. There was no doubt in his mind she would object to being carried now.

"I've got to get back. If I don't she's dead. Whoever it is, I don't even care. I'll kill them every last one of them." Clint could feel his fury building worse than Banner on a bad day.

Heimdall nodded in agreement. "Time shifts in different ways on Asgard then that of Earth."

"If I leave now how much longer will she be in that crap before I get to her?" Clint asked. He headed back to where his horse stood.

"It is hard to say." Heimdall admitted. "Days, perhaps a week."

Clint swung himself into the saddle. "Do me one favor?"

"Of course."

"Watch her."

Heimdall tilted his head wonderingly.

Clint turned his horse back to the city. "If something happens," he said seriously, "I want to know someone was there with her. I'd want to know . . ."

Heimdall put a hand on his leg. "I understand, brother."

"I _will_ be back." Clint assured him.

"I do not doubt it." Heimdall replied.

"Thank you. For defending me to Odin, for helping Fandral—"

Heimdall nodded at all of these as he moved away. "Your thanks are not necessary. Go, Clint Barton. Go and save her."

Heimdall turned his eyes back to the small rotating globe below him. The woman, the Black Widow, was in a true sad state. He watched as her assaulter returned. Repeatedly beating against what was most certainly the sorest parts of the human body. But, with the same strength and will of all those Avengers Heimdall had come to admire, she refused to give her attacker the glory of seeing weakness. And, inexplicably, a surprising stroke of events occurred. One even the Watcher of Asgard could not have foreseen, even if he'd been granted the gift of future prediction.

She wasn't going to die alone. Without the company of friends, without so much as another caring soul seeing her gently to the land of the dead. And in the moment where all sureness was provided, when Heimdall and perhaps even Natasha could clearly see there was no escaping such an inevitable outcome, human ingenuity came out full force.

The White Witch paused her assault. She kicked her chair away and poised over Natasha's body. The woman's head was leaning against her own shoulder. Noticeable to Heimdall alone was the strange object she plucked from the fabric of her collar with her teeth. Grabbing a fist full of her prey's hair, she allowed their eyes to meet. "This is goodbye, Widow. You can see that man of yours smoking in Hell just as much as you're going to be. Although, I am curious to know **_what_**_ you ever wanted me to come here for_!"

"Just for old times." Natasha whispered. "Nothing more than that."

"Old times?" The White Witch repeated, smirking. She leaned in, their foreheads nearly pressed against one another. " She could now see the strange manipulation of Natasha's jaw. The obvious look of her tongue rooting around in her mouth. Unbeknownst to the White Witch, Natasha had practiced this for weeks now. Waiting, hoping, praying that she would get the opportunity. The strength it took to keep steady, not swallow, was almost enough to kill her. But it was worth it. All for this moment.

Romanov spit in her face.

Before The White Witch could make out what had happened it was already too late. She recoiled, stumbling on suddenly unsteady feet. Her hand probed the glob of spit that struck her forehead and was shocked to come away with a small dart. Her head turned up, looking with a mixture of shock and rage at Romanov.

"Widow?" she whispered through a closing trachea.

"Go to Hell, Witch." Natasha growled.

The body collapsed.

* * *

ok, so this last little piece WAS attached to the previous chapter, but i wanted you to bleed a little before i gave it up:) enjoy!

so far, i am passing all of my finals:):)

NEXT TIME: will Clint make it back in time? what will the other avengers think of his return? Will this story ever end?


	14. Chapter 13

**Author note:** Only ONE more chapter (after this one that is:)

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 13

He'd wished there was more time. More time to say proper farewells. To say thank you once more to Odin Allfather. To see the feast Volstagg was fainting over. To test his aim against the unparalleled skill of Hogun and to win a woman away from Fandral's charms just to prove he could. He wanted to dance with Lady Sif and challenge her to an arm wrestle. He wanted to spend days on end looking out into the stars beside Heimdall without ever feeling the need to leave. He wanted so badly to just have one more minute, an hour, a day, in that mystical place of Asgard. But he knew he could never stay. Not when somewhere else, someone else, needed him so much more.

Clint's fleeting goodbyes were nothing compared to what he wanted. But they would have to suffice. As the world of Asgard faded into the blackness of night, his heart fell with the utter dullness. In the blink of eye he was back on Earth again.

The warrior Wagren had come through the portal with them and now, with the tesseract in hand returned again. Just like that, Clint's journey was over. He was home again and Asgard was far out of reach. It was simple, anticlimactic, and over. Even the advent of seeing his friends again did little to relive the tug on his soul at leaving that place. Now surrounded by the dull hues of earth, he had to remember just what it was that made this place so special for him to begin with. Why would Thor ever choose it over Asgard? Why would anyone? These thoughts he had to banish. Duty came before all personal gain.

"You get Banner." Clint told Thor, pointing him in a direction. "I'll get Steve and Tony. We leave as soon as they're ready."

Thor agreed and rushed away.

It was night over the city of Manhattan. Clint tried to fool himself into thinking it was still the same night he had spied on. It was only minutes ago, on Asgard at least, that he was standing beside Heimdall on the bridge of light. But Heimdall was right. It could have been days or weeks since he'd seen into Stark Tower. No time could be wasted. He needed to grab supplies and leave now if he had any hope of saving Natasha.

He headed for the bedrooms first. Steve's was obviously empty. In fact, it looked like it hadn't been lived in for months. Dust covered every spot not touched by the cleaning lady. Steve wasn't exactly the sleeping sort, but books he was keen on. The fact that his shelf looked as untouched as his bed brought on Clint's internal warning system.

"Crap, if he's gone back to the Helicarrier that's really going to just suck." Clint muttered to himself. He'd expected someone to be home, but as he moved through the halls it became increasingly obvious that the place was vacant. Clint's room showed no sign of activity which wasn't a surprise. His spare quiver full of arrows was still in the closet along with a change of clothes he desperately needed. After pulling himself together, he headed out to check Natasha's room.

The door was open, but like Steve's it was unoccupied and untouched. Next came Banner's. Thor was the only person within and after having come inside from the landing he reported that no one was there.

"Get down a few levels and check their lab. Hopefully he's just being a night owl. And why you're there check the gym for Steve. I can't find him either." Thor agreed and headed for the staircase. He could make it down them faster than he could wait for the elevator.

"Tony?" Clint called into the dark apartments ahead of him. He opened Stark's door and let himself in. Calling the man's name in the dark. "Tony? Anyone? Pepper?" He continued to call, moving from the outer room and into the bedroom in hopes of finding either Stark or Pepper. To his continued disappointment the rooms were completely vacant.

The bed showed signs of a struggle, either with an actual person or Tony's continued nightmares. At least it was some proof that a person had been there at all. Clint walked back out of the bedroom; he'd probably have better luck in the lab with Thor then up here. Whatever Tony was struggling through he'd most likely given up on sleep and just spent the whole night twiddling away at his inventions. The sound of a gasp and a halo of blue light brought him up short.

Tony stood in the doorway to his room. He wore only a pair of sleep pants. His ARC reactor pulsing blue against the pale white of his muscled chest. He had something in his hand at first. A mug or glass. It shattered as it hit the ground. Coffee-like contents spilled across his pant legs, the floor, even the wall. His jaw was slack, eyes blinking as if to bring the world into focus.

"Tony!" Clint said, swelling with relief. "I thought no one was here. I was beginning to think I just wasted my time even coming back!"

Stark lost his balance, his knees giving out on him as his back fell against the door frame. Terrified for him, Clint ran forward and pulled Stark back up by his arms.

"You ok? Hey, what's going on? Are you sick or something? Where's Pepper? Tony, talked to me! You're scarring the crap out of me, just say something! Is it Natasha?"

Stark stood quietly, his hands clasped over Clint's arms to hold himself up. When at least it seemed like Clint would have to shake the very answers out of him, a flicker of life flashed through Stark's eyes. His right hand pulled away, wound back, and punched Clint so hard the archer fell over backwards. Since they were still holding onto each other with their opposite hands, Tony followed him to the floor. The minute he hit, it was like releasing a Tasmanian devil from a cage. He was cursing and spitting and wailing on anything he could. First Clint's arm, then the side table. He kicked a footstool so hard it flew end over end into the wall. His fist pounded against the floor. His entire frame was unfocussed only on releasing a pent up emotion that Clint couldn't account for.

Clint stayed down, nursing his jaw and waiting for the ruckus to end. He'd gotten a little sick of meeting friends this way. Natasha was usually the one to give him a solid cold-cock to the side of his face when he deserved it. Or rather, when she thought he deserved it. Sure Stark and him had their differences at first when they really didn't know each other that well. But after beating the crap out of one another all that bad blood had been but behind them. when at last Stark seemed to be realizing, or working himself to the point of exhaustion, Clint posed a question:

"Hey, Stark, what the hell gives? I show up and you just decide to beat the ever-loving-crap out of me?"

Tony stopped. He collapsed to the floor in a heap beside Clint. His shoulders were shaking,blood was pulsing through his veins so hard Clint could actually see them springing up. Clint always had a little worry for his friend getting himself overly excited. After all, it was no secret Stark had a thousand little shards of bullet frag trying to shred his heart apart. The archer never put much faith in that blue disc on his chest. Seeing him like this only escalated his level of worry for his friend's personal health.

Clint sat up, expecting to move over and make sure Tony hadn't suddenly just had a seizure or a coronary, or whatever else could get Stark to go suddenly insane then completely stop. But he didn't get the chance to examine anything. As if adding to the level of absurdity being currently displayed in the room, Tony broke all emotional boundaries and wrapped his arms around Clint for dear life. _And He wouldn't let go. _They sat there, holding one another until reality struck like Thor's lightning and Clint understood everything.

"Oh, Tony." Clint whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I had no idea. I didn't even think that . . . Thor's mother. She heals or something, I don't really know. When Asgard came, they took Thor and Loki. The warrior, Fandral, he took me too. He wanted them to help."

Tony's grip never loosened. He sat there, bear hugging his friend as if letting go meant he'd lose Clint all over again. He never wanted to sleep, eat, or leave. He just wanted to sit on that floor until he died knowing his friend and brother was actually alive.

"It's true."

Clint looked up to the doorway. Banner was there now, standing in the puddle of coffee. His sleeves were pushed past his elbows. His hands stained in lab chemicals and God knew what else. It seemed Clint was right about Thor finding him in the lab.

"It's true." Banner repeated, as if Clint and Tony hadn't heard him. Maybe he didn't hear himself because he kept saying the words, over and over.

Steve's loud steps could be heard in the hallway getting closer. He pushed past Banner, running halfway to Clint and Tony before stopping automatically. For once the fearless leader wasn't sure what to do with himself. He just stood there over them.

Clint decided to try and talk to him. Surely the Captain had some rational half left in his brain after the massive shock he'd been dealt. "Cap, where's Tasha?"

Clint's theory proved right.

"Uh, she's gone." Steve staggered to get out. "HYDRA. After you, after we thought . . . she went after HYDRA."

"When? How long has she been gone?"

Steve looked at Bruce.

"Four, five weeks? At least a month." Bruce answered. His voice was low, struggling to keep composed.

"Any reports from her?"

"Nothing for weeks." Steve told him.

"I think I know where she is. If she's still there. I know I'll need help getting her out. Can you do that?" Clint eased his grip on Tony, physically peeling the man's arms off of him. When they were looking face to face, Clint posed the question again. "Tony, can you do that? I need to get her, she's going to die if we don't leave right know and find her, do you understand me?"

Stark said nothing, but it was clear he did understand.

"Ok. Good. Bruce, what day did you smash the nightstand?"

Bruce looked at him as if Clint was crazy.

"I need a reference!" Clint told him. "Was it tonight? A week ago? A month ago? What?"

Banner shrugged, trying to remember himself. It seemed like so much had happened since then. "I don't . . . I . . . maybe yesterday. No, Tuesday. Three days ago. I'm pretty sure it was then Tuesday night."

_Three days_, Clint thought. He hoped Natasha had lasted at least three more days. "I need a plane. We need to get to Budapest."

"What's in Budapest?" Steve asked.

"Natasha."

:(:):(:)

Natasha Romanov had never been broken in her life. Regardless of every horrifying moment she'd spent in the field. With every event that led to her state now, with everything she'd ever done, she had been proud in the fact that no one had broken her. She'd been shot, stabbed, tortured, smashed, but no one got to that little piece of strength she kept hidden in the clearest part of her soul. It was surrounded in a shell that could never break. The one thing in life she'd always held on to. It took this moment. This part of her life to realize herself just what it was that kept her going for so long.

And that was Clint Barton.

The goofy, lopsided smile. The pestering jabs. His spontaneous need for junk food. The pranks. The jokes. The obsession with 80s and 90s cop movies and the overwhelming urge to drag her off to every circus showing in any country at any time. Those were the things that made him more than just an assassin. It was that personality behind the mask that SHIELD built into him. It reminded her that they were both humans, together, living through a life most people could never fathom. And his arms were always there, waiting for her. He'd never given up on her.

Until, she killed him.

Perhaps it wasn't how Loki had planned, but it was suiting enough. He'd been the one to mask her vision. Her own hatred of the offspring of Jotenheim did the rest. He had but to sit back and watch the fireworks. Enjoying every hellish moment Natasha dragged herself through when the realization hit at last.

No one had ever broken Natasha Romanov. Because her mind always held onto that one distant hope. That Clint Barton was out there. And if he was still alive, then there was nothing to fear. He would move heaven and Earth to get her back. He'd never in his life disappointed her. Against impossible odds, he'd always saved her. But now? Now, chained to the ceiling, with her hands devoid of blood and feeling Natasha felt at last she had given up. The one saving grace was the fulfillment of her revenge. The end of a grudge match she'd never even been privy to until then. Clint had died because Natasha's old allies wanted him dead. He'd died because Romanov herself shot him in the head and splattered his brains across an abandoned subway tunnel. She'd destroyed the only good thing in her life. The only rescue she could ever count on.

The full weight of the world dropped over her shoulders. Her body sunk against the chains that held her. If there was even a way to escape, she didn't try it. She deserved this. She deserved every horrid moment of this torture for what she'd done.

Natasha Romanov just simply gave up.

:(:):(:):

Clint was in the pilot's seat of the Quinjet, shoving the thrusters of the SHIELD plane to their limits. He didn't trust anyone else to have the same caution-to-the-wind approach at handling the aircraft and elected to drive himself. Stark was sitting in the copilot's chair beside him. Not because he knew how to do anything Clint required of him, but it spooked the billionaire to stand in the back of the cabin. The last time he and Clint were in this position, Tony had almost lost his arm and Clint his life. He was perfectly content to remain as close to Clint as possible this time. At his back, Steve Rogers was pulling on the gloves of his uniform. His shield rested against the back of the pilot's seat, well within reach. Banner stood attentively behind Stark, looking out the viewport into the dark sky. Thor wasn't in the cabin at all. At Clint's direction, he'd gone ahead of them. The fastest of the team, he'd make it to Budapest with a considerable head start. He could crack a way into the building and get half of the attention drawn his way, leaving the Avengers with the element of surprise on their hands.

Tony had gone to SHIELD and requisitioned the jet. They had kicked out the original flight crew to twiddle their thumbs at Stark Tower and were in the sky within two hours of Clint's return from the grave. In that time, perhaps ten words had passed between the four men in the Quinjet. It seemed almost wrong to talk. As if any words out of place would dispel the strange fantasy enacting around them. Now, halfway to Budapest it was the likes of Banner who decided to open up conversation. He was quick in his desire to get them all working again and return sentiments to what they had been before. He wasn't alone in the need to pretend the last two months had never happened at all.

"You look good." Banner said. "You know, for a dead guy."

Clint smiled back at him. "Thanks."

"You were shot, right? We all didn't just decide to imagine that?"

"Yeah. I was. Oh, and a wolf bit my hand too. Almost forgot about that. Can still kinda see the scar." Clint held his hand out for inspection. Both Steve and Banner took him up on the offer. Tony turned his face the opposite way.

"Not that massive thing?" Steve asked.

Clint shook his head, pulling his hand back. "No. He gave me a beating, but not that. Thor's hammer's the only thing that saved me."

"Mjolnir?"

"Yeah. Fancy that, right? Stingy every other day of the year but the one minute I actually need it, it didn't seem to mind so much."

"Huh," Steve said.

The silence that followed was filled at last by Tony Stark. As the most talkative one of the Avengers he was suddenly thrown to the opposite end of the wagon when Clint reappeared. Of all of them, he had spoken the least.

"Broke your bow." Was his epic comment.

"I know. Didn't do it intentionally, Fenrir grabbed hold of it and that was the end note. Thor's father, Odin, gave me a new one. A way of paying me back for saving his son. I wasn't able to thank him properly, I don't think, before Heimdall told me about Natasha. I got here as soon as I could."

"You were away for a while." Tony continued.

"Time's different on Asgard." Clint explained. "I was unconscious for ten days, maybe more. It was weird. When I did wake up, I didn't think much about home."

"You _forgot_ about us?"

Clint looked over at Tony, trying to read the lines on his friend's beaten face. It could have been obvious to a blind man how affected he'd been by Clint's death. He was hurt now, that was natural.

"I_ didn't_ forget you." Clint told him flatly. "On Asgard, things just change in your mind. It's like nothing else exists at all but what's right in front of your face. I would never forget you. Or anyone here. It's like your memories are kept away. If I'd been there a week more I don't think I'd even remember my own name didn't have an "of" in it. Earth wasn't even Earth, it was Midgard. The universe was just realms made up like branches of a tree. All that alien jargon we wry on Thor about I saw just as clearly as he always does. Asgard became home."

"What you're describing reminds me of a form of brain wash." Banner said, his scientific mind unable to help itself. "Like Stockholm syndrome."

"I wasn't captured against my will." Barton pointed out.

"Isolation." Steve interjected.

They deferred their attention to him, waiting for an explanation.

He shrugged, "Well, it's not like I'm an authority on the subject or anything. I just remember a bunch of guys during the war let loose from a prison camp. They'd been in isolation so long they didn't know what day it was, the president's name, half of them forgot they were even in a war. Their minds found it too hard to process and they just stopped thinking about it."

Banner began to agree. "Traumatic injury. You lived despite all the odds against you. You wake up on a different planet in the middle of a race of people you hardly understand. The last time something like that happened we were fighting aliens in Manhattan. Anyone's brain would just shut down at some point."

Clint looked beside him to Stark. "See," he said. "I didn't forget you."

"Now your admitting to traumatic brain injury." Tony retorted. Some of the life and snark return to his voice.

"Well, something blew my brain up." Clint replied.

Tony even smirked. He turned away, propping his feet up on the dashboard ahead of him. "Yeah, well, once we save lover-girl I'll just let her try and explain that to you."

:(:):(:):

The ceiling above her head vibrated. Falling bits of plaster and dust floated down from the beams above to coat her hair in white. It sounded like HYDRA was hosting a line dance up there with about two-thousand booted men dancing to the same tune. One day it was explosions in the distance, the next it was line dancing. Natasha ceased to be surprised with anything going on around her.

By now someone would have risen from the ranks to take White Witch's spot. The Widow had to admit, even though she'd took a mighty beating for killing the woman it wasn't hidden that the guards were just going through the motions. Without Loki as a focal point directing their movements, HYDRA was nothing impressive. Just an organized group of men with guns and time on their hands. Loki was gone, the Witch was dead, and it was only a matter of time before HYDRA dissolved into a mercenary operation. The minute they did, SHIELD would be all over them like red paint on Iron Man's armor. Probably the only smile she allowed herself to have in weeks came with the passing of that thought. Tony would definitely get in on the action, as retribution for his fallen brother. If a single one of them got past the Hulk, they wouldn't be safe for long. Steve may just take them into custody. Or if he was still torn up about Clint's death and Natasha's ultimate demise he could just skip the justice bit and tear them in half.

The banging over her head grew in intensity. Larger hunks of plaster dislodged and hit the floor around her. An errant thought crossed her mind about the chain's hook giving free. With all the luck she used up murdering the White Witch, she expected the chance of that was too big to guestimate.

Her stomach had stopped aching yesterday. It was a bad sign. Food hadn't entered her mouth in at least four days. Water had stopped three days ago. Given those numbers, Natasha expected she'd be dead by morning. That is to say it was night now. Being trapped, alone, in a basement in Budapest did have its way of messing with one's internal clock. Her body was exhausted. She was half disappointed the gunshot in her knee wasn't severe enough to end her life days before. Now she had all this spare time on her hands to hang, think, and die alone.

The steady thumping she had almost grown used to above her changed again. The entire building suddenly shook, violently, as if a fist slammed into it. The hook in the ceiling jumped up, then slammed down, wrenching her arms with it. A cry parted her lips at the new feeling.

"Hey!" she shouted, which was barely audible at best. "Cut the—cut the crap up there! Some . . . people are . . . are tryin' to sleep."

Another fist shook the walls to the very foundation. Natasha's head lolled against her chest. Before she may have tried to lift it, but not now. She'd already reasoned with the fact that she was going to die tonight. Doing anything to prolong that just seemed like too much effort.

She must have passed out for a time, because when her eyes opened a portion of the ceiling was gone. Four bodies were tangled under a mess of wood and drywall. One made a sort of movement and noise to display that perhaps he was not as dead as the other three. It didn't matter to the Black Widow. She was in no position or condition to help anyone, least of all a HYDRA goon that earned the throttle he got.

Natasha tried to lift her head up, to look through the hole and see just what had happened. The strength it took just thinking about the motion decided her against it. Didn't matter anyway. No one was looking for her. No one was there to save her. And she didn't deserve to be saved even if this very moment SHIELD figured they might go crawling after her. Her arms relaxed, her body hung down, and with a final deep breath she told herself that this was finally it.

The door to her left blasted inward with the force of a booted foot. Some unnamed HYDRA croon rushed in. He had a knife already in his hands. It was obvious what he was there to do. Out of reflex, Natasha tried to push to her feet. Her legs felt like limp nubs, not even attached to her body. She leaned away, even as he grabbed a fistful of hair, yanked her neck back and drove his knife down. This would be the end of it all.

The slick wet blood poured down her neck and chest. It was warm, fresh, free of the fetid stink of old blood. Natasha's breath stopped in her chest. Her eyes were opened wide as she watched death come. She didn't know what waited for her on the other side, but it seemed too late to think of that. She felt her arms release, her body fell backward cushioned in strong arms. Her legs felt lighter, free. Why anyone had bothered to slit her throat then take her out of her cuffs wasn't a worry she needed to dwell on. The world was already shifting as a light found its way over her vision and beckoned her out of darkness.

"Natasha?" a voice called, sounding so distant.

_Clint?_ She whispered in her mind. Was this all she needed to do? Had he been waiting for her here in the beyond? Waiting for her to die so they could be together again? "Clint?"

"Tasha?" He said again, calling her to him. "Come on, Tasha, don't do this to me! Tony, bring that light closer, I think she was shot! Tasha?!"

"Hang on a sec, you made a nasty mess of that guy." Tony complained, moving over the human pez-head leaking all over the floor.

Natasha saw the light moving closer. Her dreamlike image of herself floated toward it, pulling her closer and closer to Clint's voice. He sounded so agitated to get to her. To be with her. She felt awful for making him wait so long.

Hands, warm hands found the edges of her face. His rough, scarred, fingers brushed her hair away as his head leaned toward hers. Two perfect blue sapphires looked into her soul.

"Nat, can you hear me?" the ghost asked.

"Clint?" she whispered again.

"Did you hear that?" Clint demanded.

"I heard it." Tony assured him, a little surprised himself.

"Nat, say it again. Say my name. Who am I?"

She forced her hand up, it only made it to his battle scarred ear before it tried to fall back again. But Clint caught hold of it. He brought it to his lips, planting a kiss over the bloodless fingers.

"Clint." She pressed.

"Don't worry, ok? I'm here for you. Just like I always am." He leaned over her. His lips finding hers. He didn't care that Tony was standing there watching with his headlamps giving Clint the only clear view of the state Natasha was in. The entire team could be there and Clint wouldn't be deterred. He'd been so terrified that he'd be too late. That he'd lose Natasha forever. But it seemed like he'd made it just in time. He pulled away from her, just enough to see the growing life flood back into her eyes. It was becoming more real to her by the moment. That this wasn't just some after death experience driven by her need to live. Clint was there. He was there and he was alive and he was going to rescue her.

Unashamed tears poured from the corners of her eyes. "Clint! Clint! Clint!"

He held her in his arms, "I know, it's me. It's real. It's all real, and I'm here. We're getting out of this and you're going to be fine, ok?"

Natasha's fingers grabbed the collar of his shirt. In her weakness she fainted there in his arms, but her hold never slackened. Now that they were together, now that it was over, she was never letting go.

Clint held her against his chest with one arm as he slipped his other arm beneath her legs. She felt like a child against him. He nodded his head toward Iron Man. "Want to gimme a lift out of here?"

"Got your Juliet, so you're leaving the cleanup to us?" Tony asked, a hint of mirth to his voice.

"Hey, technically I'm still dead, so I think that awards me some paid leave from cleanup duty."

"Actually I think you owe us one for dealing with that blown up building in New York you did not help with." Stark shot back.

"Do you want to take her to the nearest third-world hospital then and try to fill out all the necessary paperwork in a language you cant understand while some guy with leprosy rubs up against you-?"

"All right, all right! No. That little Hell-cats all yours. Especially when she wakes up and finds out you aren't dead. That's your problem."

"Thanks for caring." Clint fake-grinned.

"No prob, Katniss."

* * *

ok, next chapter is the end! i can't believe it!


	15. Chapter 14

**Author note:** Hold on to your pants! this is the final chapter!

**Disclaimer:** This was made not for profit, just my own sad fun.

**Vibranium Hawkeye**

**By, PeechTao  
**

Chapter 14

The Captain had found them a little place to stay at in the outskirt town of Sagvar. The building was old, or rustic as the places in this part of Hungary were often considered. The rooms were nothing to be impressed with. But regardless of the relative squalor, and Tony's sensitive tastes to the way things should be when he stayed out-of-country, not even he was subject to say anything against it. A strange brotherhood settled among them. Natasha's immediate need for medical care hardly put a damper on anyone's moods. Much like Clint, she'd tolerated precisely three unconscious hours in the local emergency ward before storming out on her one working leg. Clint had remained outdoors, waiting for news. Even with her inside the fear of being around that place was too much to tempt him in. It didn't help matters that the hospital held eerie familiarity to the one he'd been subjected too years ago, the first and last time he'd ever been in Budapest.

He was slightly miffed at Natasha's running off, but that didn't mean he wasn't the first to jump behind the steering wheel and be the driver of her getaway car. She was asleep before they reached the apartment. Her hand was wrapped in his.

Clint knew enough basic first aid to make her comfortable until Banner was brought around enough to take over himself. As it was, the Hulk was a less than pleased to be caged again. When the big guy realized the same as all the others that Clint was alive, it took a good deal of reservation for him to keep from pounding the archer into the ground out of sure glee. Instead he grabbed a two nearby cars, smashed them together a few dozen times and threw them into the remains of the HYDRA base. Then he may have torn down a dozen walls and broke a few windows. And thrown Thor against a wall, just because the Asgardian had been gone an unreasonably long time as well and he had the strength to withstand the disapproval the Hulk had on the subject.

Steve and Tony weren't pleased to see Natasha back so soon from the hospital, but they knew better than to say anything about it to Clint. Banner wasn't long gone and when he did reappear he was plenty capable of handling her headstrong nature. He'd had ample practice on both Stark and Clint to merit his ability to handle a little dehydration and gunshot wound. Natasha would need surgery, eventually, but for now even the thought of separating the team for a few hours was enough to have everyone in a protest. After the day of battle, they just wanted to be together, if even for a brief time.

:(:):(:):

One fact that always made Tony stop and wonder about people's individual priorities was this: in a third-world city, in the midst of the crappiest hotel he'd ever stayed at in his life, one he could only compare to the rat-hole cave he'd been kidnapped to, the hotel owners made a point to spend their money exactly where it was needed most. No, that didn't mean they'd installed hot water in the shower. Funds were not invested in the leaky gas range that Stark was sure would eventually kill them all in their sleep. Not even the beds appeared to have been altered since the forties when surely Steve as a soldier was using them to cover a foxhole. No, the only updated amenity in the entire hotel "suite" was the digital flat-screen television, surround sound and Blue Ray player with an entire stack of pirated DVD's to go along with it.

Priorities.

Well, if it was available, he was going to use it. And everyone else was too.

Steve had gone out to dig up some dinner for everyone, which in this part of the world consisted of some unnamed meats and veggies thrown into a goulash of unknown origin. At least the liter of Coke helped everything go down smooth as acid rain. And the junk food was a nice touch too. Steve may not have been able to read the labels on anything he'd brought back, but at least the international language of crap food was universally packaged. Bright colors, happy children, and things that looked like they could make a person gain weight just by looking at them. While the goulash wasn't a hot ticket, the dessert certainly was.

The Avengers made a ring around the television set just as they often found themselves doing back home. The two-person loveseat with dilapidated legs only withheld the pressure of Thor and the Captain for ten minutes before three legs blew off. As that remained the only real position of comfort in the room, Banner and Clint both dragged one of the beds from an adjacent room out. So, as Natasha lay curled in her own bed just a doorway from them, Clint and Tony took the foot of the bed in front of the television. Banner sat on the floor beside them. Steve and Thor remained on the couch (after breaking off the fourth now useless leg). They started a movie marathon that would one-by-one claim them all to sleep.

Tony was sure what he'd put on first. Clint was oblivious to the movie reference he'd made earlier and to make him understand they watched the Hunger Games. When Tony got up halfway through to refill himself a cup of the bile-tasting water from the tap he got a look at who was still left awake. He wasn't surprised to find Steve out like a light. The Captain had been burning the candle at both ends. He'd been used to losing men. He'd admit that to anyone. But that never meant he didn't grieve like everyone else or have regrets. Now that some twist of fate his team had been pieced back together, the Captain felt at last he deserved his break. What better way to take it then in the company of his family again. Banner was never good for much after he'd Hulked out for a while. He was the next to pass out sideways along the filthy floor carpet. Thor's cape was sacrificed to the good doctor's comfort. The Asgardian dropped it over his prone body a few minutes after he noticed the man had fallen asleep.

Stark filled his cup then went back to his seat beside Clint. They had shifted from the end of the bed to the top, resting against the dusty head board. Tony first passed the glass to him.

"Nah, I'm good. Think I caught giardia last year. Don't want to give myself another rousing bout of that." He said.

"Fine, more bugs for me." Tony said, drinking. His face skewed up at the horrid taste and after a second of contemplation he leaned over the bed and spit it out on the floor. "Is it possible that it can taste worse than an hour ago?"

"It is if someone decided to reroute a sewer pipe while you weren't looking." Clint remarked.

Tony gave him a terrified glance.

"I can't even believe you just drank that. I mean, you don't even like being handed things. You drink chlorophyll and fresh squeezed cranberry juice." Clint pointed out.

"I don't know I felt like we were having a moment. Like, break free of all caution and all that glory crap." He scraped his tongue along the top of his mouth and set the glass down on the floor.

"I think you're a little high." Clint replied. He shifted his position against the headboard, bringing up his knees to rest his arms over them. "What the hell sort of movie is this thing? Like, what are you making me watch right now?"

"You didn't get it Katniss, I must make you understand." Tony replied. "Sides, I thought the actress was hot at one point."

"And now?"

"Blood and guts are sort of throwing me."

"Is this supposed to be for kids or something?"

"Fine, let's watch Lord of the Rings."

"God no, I've seen that like eighty-nine times." Clint complained.

"Well, I'm not hearing any suggestions from the unhelpful dead man to my left."

"How about Robin Hood?" Clint asked. "The one in tights. It just kills me. Patriot arrow." He started giggling to himself just thinking about it.

"Would if I could, but haven't got that." Stark said. He leaned off the mattress to look through the DVD collection. "How about Braveheart?"

"No."

"What is this Braveheart?" Thor asked. For a little while they had forgotten he was even awake.

"You'd like it." Clint told him. "Men running around in war paint flashing their jewels at the enemy. In fact, I bet I've seen Volstagg in the supporting cast somewhere."

"OH MY GOD!" Stark interrupted them both by snatching a DVD out of the pile and shoving it into the machine. "We are watching this. Thor, shut up. You are going to love it." Tony returned to the bed and crashed sideways against Clint's shoulder. _"Ah, my wee lamb,"_ he said in a distinctly Irish accent. _"We be watching __**Brave**__ now, and there be nothin' ye can do to change it."_

"Tony, get off me."_  
_

:(:):(:):

There was a small balcony just beyond Natasha's window that gave a fairly unobscured view of Lake Balaton past the lighting city streets. The sun was just coming up in the distance to his right. It would be hours before the rest of the team began to move. He was surprised he was even awake at this unreasonable hour, but worry over Natasha had pulled the dreams away from him. He knew he had nothing to fear. Banner was just as sleep-cautious as Clint. His own internal clock kept him from losing track of Natasha's hourly checkups.

Clint was perched on the railing, watching as the city began to switch from nightlife to the men and women that populated the day. He was holding his strange new bow in his hand. He twisted it over and over, flexing the string to test its strength. With a thought it was gone again. Then it appeared once more on the blink of an eye, just the same as it had looked before.

"A prestigious gift." Thor said.

Clint glanced over his shoulder, watching the Asgardian approach. "Hey, coma-kid, how are you?"

"Well, my friend." Thor replied. He dropped Mjolnir on the railing between them. "The Odinsleep is something new to me. I thought, my family thought, I would be sparred its effects until the Kingship was passed along to me. It seems that my strength has gained in this family of ours. I must adjust to meet the challenge."

Clint nodded. He ran his fingers along the pitch black bowstring as his eyes fixed on the distant sun. Scrolls of ebony carved into ancient symbols decorated up and down the limbs. The riser felt as smooth as Mjolnir's handle. He held the weapon out to Thor.

"No, Clint of Barton." He said, pushing it back to him. "This gift of Odin is made for you. The power of Barton wielded by the archer himself."

"No one else can use it? Like Mjolnir?"

Thor agreed. "To a certain degree it would seem. Mjolnir found you a worthy soul to align with. I suppose it may be possible. But to find a man with the same heart to reflect your own? Now that would be a much bigger task." He patted his hammer, turning his eyes out to the city. "Is it not beautiful? Asgard?"

Clint smiled. "More that I imagined. The Bifrost. Probably my favorite part there. I never could have dreamed something so striking in my life."

"It is unparalleled."

"Now I know why you love it." Clint said. "Compared to Asgard, this place is just so . . . one-dimensional."

"You speak the truth expressively."

Clint sighed, naturally advancing the conversation he asked: "What are they going to do about Loki and Fenrir? He broke out once already. Can they be sure he'll stay put this time?"

To this Thor leaned on the railing. He'd had the same concern, a feeling he'd shared in passing with Clint during the party on Asgard. "It is my fear that he has a confederate."

Clint's jaw tightened.

"I may need your help, ferreting this man out. You have been accepted by my father, are familiar with the terrain now and some of the people. It is natural to ask an outside source for assistance in this matter. It is much to ask so soon after what we have been through, but my entreaty is a sincere one."

Clint answered without the reservation Thor imagined he may have. "You'll have it. Whatever you need. I'll support you."

Another form came onto the landing. Thor turned, grinning to meet her. He clapped a hand on Clint's shoulder which nearly served to drop the archer off the ledge. Without noticing this fact, the Asgardian entered the hotel again. He pulled the door shut behind him to offer the two humans a moment of privacy.

Natasha was smiling. It was a beautiful sight to see beyond her swollen eye, the limping leg, and the obvious pain she was never going to admit existed. She hobbled over to him, snaking her arms around his waist as together they took in the dawning rays of sunshine.

"I'm sorry I shot you." She said to him.

The landing fell into a dead silence. Even the waking city seemed to stop movement to allow the uncomfortable pause to drag out unaffected. Clint's head turned slowly to her. "You . . . You what?!"

Natasha shrugged as if it was an every-other-day occurrence between them. "I shot you. Sorry. End of story." She said plainly. "I'll try not to let it happen again. If I think it might be you, I'll just shoot you in the leg first until I'm sure."

Clint blinked at her. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and looked at her again to see if maybe he was dreaming.

"Stop giving me that look." She told him. "It's not like the story's going to change or something. I did it, sorry, glad to see you're not dead. And in my defense at the time I thought you were Loki."

"I guess it's just the thought that counts." Clint said. He figured he'd just let the matter drop. Natasha wasn't in the condition for him to poke at and continue to annoy and frankly it wasn't going to change the past either. At least it was nice to know that if she ever planned on shooting him again, a warning bullet through his thigh would precede the killing blow. He spent an awful long time trying to figure out how that was somehow supposed to be comforting.

Natasha's eyes drifted down from his face to the black cord around his neck. A stabbing pain of remorse filled her gut at the sight. It was his arrow-head necklace. The one given to him by the White Witch under the false pretense of being a kind heart. Her fingers wrapped around it. She wanted to tear it off his neck. To crush it in her hands until there was nothing left but twisted metal and dust.

"I just love it."

Clint's voiced stopped her.

"It reminds me of all the good I can do." He went on, pressing his hand over hers to look at the arrowhead. "She did all that to find me. Came like four hours all the way to Manhattan just to look me up. When I was at my absolute lowest she was that little push I needed to decide I needed to be a better man. You know how sometimes people just show up in your life like that? Without you expecting it? I wonder where she is sometimes. I wonder if she ever existed at all. But it doesn't really matter. I have this to look at to keep me on track. To keep me focused on the good things."

Natasha listened to his voice, but at the same time her sober half wanted desperately to rebel against him. She wanted to say the truth. The cold, hard, horrible truth of what that arrowhead had done to him. Of what Natasha's feelings for Clint had almost caused. But then some other core peace of her heart took over and stopped the heated Russian blood from making the worst mistake in her life. Clint needed this. And she wasn't going to take that away from him.

Her hand unclenched, her head came forward and rested into the crook of his neck. The city was hardly something to look at. Filled with filthy alleys, a putrid smell, and the throng of unbathed workers heading to another shift in the increasing heat. It was not the sight Natasha expected Clint had been out here taking in for nearly an hour.

"What are you looking at?" She asked, genuine curiosity making her want to understand where his mind had gone. Surely it wasn't in the present.

His face brightened, his eyes still fixed in the distant landscape she'd been blind to. A landscape shared only by Thor and he.

"Asgard." He whispered. As his eyes passed over the outlines of the sweeping spires, the bright kaleidoscope of rolling grasslands and the crash of sea water against the city walls. The remains of the rainbow Bifrost silhouetted the distance, the polished sword of Heimdall standing at attention reflected in Clint's eyes. Sounds of horse's hooves, Volstagg's laugh, flapping flags, and soldiers' armor all replaced the little town Natasha alone took sight of.

She pulled closer to him, her arms drawing his body to hers. She willed her eyes to share in the beauty he saw as her fingers traced the peculiar words of the silver bow he held. Her imagination was dull with disuse. Her memories of Thor's constant Asgard babble had been long ago replaced with more pressing thoughts.

"Describe it to me." She whispered.

"You hate it when Thor does." Clint pointed out.

"Thor isn't you." She countered. "I love your voice."

With a quick thought, the bow disappeared into the nothingness of air. Clint pushed himself down from the railing to stand behind Natasha's back. He pulled her against his chest, dipping his mouth playfully beside her ear as his words began to spin their own tale of fantasy.

Budapest, their pasts, their fears, even the thoughts of their friends all faded to black in that moment. The world stopped revolving and for even a brief time Clint and Natasha were in a world of their own making. A world where rainbow bridges jutted out into crashing waters over the edge of a universe. Where men were warriors serving a king who sat of a throne of silken gold. A place where a human could become more than a man and dwell in the realm of higher beings. It was also a place of brothers, sisters, family like no other. A glorified vacation from Clint Barton's real life. The one he shared here, with her. These moments that life decided to give them whether out of pity or love. These moments that were too short and often times interrupted by duty.

Or, just Tony Stark.

The door swung open behind them. Clint's little day-time story had slowly spun out of a sultry control and ended with Natasha on the railing and neither of them focused on whatever city was existing in the distance.

"Crap, Barton, didn't get enough of that from Thor's Viking women? Romanov, you got shot in that leg, how'd you even get it up there?" Stark shot his mouth off. "I want breakfast for crap's sake and I'm not letting Steve come back with eggs-in-a-basket goulash. Let's go."

Clint didn't have to turn around, or even reply. Natasha's middle finger was all the answer Stark needed to how fast he was going to end up with a full stomach.

"I give you ten minutes." Stark growled, but retreated.

Clint chuckled against the nape of Natasha's neck. His lips planted a trail that would not be traveled just once. "He doesn't know how long I can make ten minutes last for you." He said huskily.

Natasha's fingers curled beneath his chin, pressing his face against hers in a breathless exchange. "Get with it, Hawkeye. Because so far, neither do I."

THE END

* * *

thank you so much for all the support with the completion of this story! Finals are still going, so far i've passed my first term of veterinary medicine:)

HUGE FYI!

For those that believe this will be the end of my story telling this these remarkable characters, get excited now.

I am already working on one or two spin off plots. nothing has been solidly written yet, and i can't give any time frames, but i hope to get them hashed out at some point soon.

Merry Christmas!


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